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Negro  and  the  White  Man. 


BY 

BISHOP  W.  J.  GAINES,  D.D. 

Of  Georgia. 


A.  M.  E.  PUBLISHING  HOUSE, 

631  Pine  St.,   Philadelphia. 
1897. 


Copyrighted,  1897, 
BY 

Bishop  W.  J.  Gaines,  D.  D. 


TO 
MY   WIFE, 

JULIA  A.  GAINES, 

AND  ALSO  MY  DAUGHTER, 

MARY  L.  GAINES, 

WHOSE   CONSTANT   DEVOTION  TO   ME 

AS    HUSBAND    AND    FATHER 

HAS  COMFORTED   AND   CHEERED   ME   THROUGH  THE  TOILS 

OF  A   METHODIST   PREACHER'S   LIFE, 

THESE  PAGES 
ARE  AFFECTIONATELY   DEDICATED. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2012  with  funding  from 

University  of  North  Carolina  at  Chapel  Hill 


http://archive.org/details/negrowhitemanOOgain 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAQE 

INTRODUCTION   7 

I.   THE  NEGRO'S   ETHNOLOGY 9 

II.   SLAVERY 14 

III.  EVILS   OF  AFRICAN  SLAVERY 22 

IV.  AGITATION   BY   THE  ABOLITIONISTS 32 

V.    IRREPRESSIBLE   CONFLICT   AT   HAND 41 

VI.   LINCOLN  AND   OTHER   LEADERS 54 

VII.   THE  CIVIL  WAR  AND  THE  PART  THE  NEGRO  TOOK  IN  IT.  62 

VIII.   RISE  TO   FREEDOM 71 

IX.   RISE  TO   CITIZENSHIP 82 

X.   RECONSTRUCTION  AND  SUFFRAGE 91 

XI.   NECESSITY   FOR   EDUCATION   RECOGNIZED 99 

XII.   RAPID  GROWTH   OF  THE   EDUCATIONAL    SPIRIT 107 

XIII.  CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  NEGRO   EDUCATION   117 

XIV.  CAPACITY   OF  THE   NEGRO   FOR   HIGHER    EDUCATION..  125 
XV.   ACCUMULATION  OF  PROPERTY    135 

XVI.    MARRIAGE — HOW  REGARDED 143 

XVII.   AMALGAMATION 151 

XVIII.   THE   INTER-MARRIAGE   QUESTION  161 

XIX.   THE   POLITICAL   QUESTION   AND   THE   NEGRO 168 

XX     HOME   LIFE   OF  THE   NEGRO 177 

XXI.   THE   RELIGION   OF   THE   NEGRO  185 

XXII.    RIGHT   TREATMENT   URGED 194 

XXIII.    SHALL   THE   NEGRO    EMIGRATE 203 

XXIV.  AN  APPEAL  TO  OUR  BROTHER  IN  WHITE 213 

5 


IKTEODUOTIOK. 


IT  has  been  my  purpose  for  years  to  put  my  views  on 
the  so-called  "  Negro  Question  "  into  permanent  form. 
The  cares  and  duties  of  my  official  life,  involving  a  heavy 
tax  upon  my  time  and  strength,  have  prevented  the  earlier 
fulfillment  of  this  cherished  purpose.  I  could  not  afford, 
however,  at  my  time  of  life,  to  further  delay  the  execution 
of  the  work  I  had  mapped  out.  In  the  intervals  of  my 
Episcopal  visits  to  the  conferences  and  churches  I  have 
devoted  such  time  as  I  had  to  the  preparation  of  these 
chapters,  which  now,  for  the  first  time,  go  forth  to  the 
public. 

So  far  as  I  know,  I  am  the  first  of  my  race  to  take  up 
and  discuss  in  a  systematic  form  this  question  in  all  its 
aspects  and  phases.  It  has  required  research  and  laborious 
effort.  I  have  availed  myself  of  such  authorities  as  fur- 
nished me  with  the  necessary  data  for  the  work,  and  have 
endeavored  to  state  correctly  all  facts  which  I  have  used 
impartially  and  fairly. 

I  have  striven  to  divest  myself  of  all  prejudice  and  bias, 
and  to  discuss  the  great  question  with  honesty,  candor  and, 
above  all,  with  a  purpose  to  accomplished  good.  I  have 
no  resentments  to  indulge,  no  race  prejudices  to  ventilate, 
no  animosities  to  gratify.  I  have  endeavored  to  be  con- 
servative, and  if,  in  some  instances,  I  have  been  bold  in 

7 


8  INTRODUCTION. 

the  statement  of  my  views,  it  has  been  with  no  purpose  to 
wound  or  irritate.  In  the  language  of  Dr.  Samuel  John- 
son :  "  I  would  write  down  nothing  which,  in  dying,  I 
would  wish  »to  blot."  I  would  close,  rather  than  widen, 
the  breach,  if  any  there  be,  between  the  races.  I  would 
lift  my  voice  always  for  harmony  on  the  lines  of  justice 
and  righteousness,  as  God  has  ordained  them  to  exist 
between  man  and  man.  I  deem  him  an  enemy  to  his 
race,  be  he  white  or  colored,  who  foments  strife,  who  seeks 
to  breed  discontent,  division  and  hatred.  No  question  can 
be  settled  finally  and  permanently,  until  it  is  settled  right. 

I  would  reach  the  great  heart  of  my  brother  in  white. 
I  would  assure  him  that  I  feel  nothing  but  the  sentiment 
of  kindness  toward  him,  and  that  I  recognize  that  the  des- 
tiny of  the  American  negro  is  bound  up  for  weal  or  woe 
with  his  destiny. 

I  would,  in  these  pages,  reach  the  heart  and  conscience 
of  my  own  race,  and  help  them  to  broader  views,  better 
living  and  nobler  aspirations.  If,  in  this  desire  I  should 
fail,  I  would  feel  that  my  labor  had  been  in  vain. 

I  invoke  the  charitable  criticism  of  all  who  may  chance 
to  read  these  pages.  I  cannot  expect  all  to  agree  with  me 
in  the  views  I  have  expressed,  or  in  the  conclusions  1  have 
reached.  But  feeling  that  I  have  honestly  sought  to  find 
the  truth  and  to  manfully  and  fearlessly,  yet  kindly  and 
charitably,  give  it  expression,  I  send  this  volume  out  to 
the  world,  earnestly  praying  that  it  may  be  a  means  of 
blessing  to  men. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  NEGRO  ETHNOLOGICALLY  CONSIDERED. 

THE  word  "negro"  is  of  Latin  origin,  derived 
from  niger,  which  means  black.  It  is  applied 
to  the  races  of  the  African  continent,  and  to  their 
descendants  in  the  Old  and  New  world. 

The  Egyptians,  Berbers,  Abyssinians,  and  Nu- 
bians of  Northern  Africa  are  not  classed  as  the 
negro,  though  there  is  a  strong  admixture  of  negro 
blood  in  most  of  these.  The  term  negro  is  not  a 
national  appellation,  but  is  applied  generally  to 
about  one-half  of  the  population  of  Africa,  includ- 
ing the  most  fertile  portion  of  that  continent. 

Prof.  Willis  Boughton,  of  the  Ohio  University, 
in  an  ably  written  article,  which  appeared  in  the 
Arena  of  September,  1896,  says: 

"  The  black  race  has  a  history.  In  fact,  all  his- 
tory is  full  of  traces  of  the  black  element.  It  is 
now  usually  recognized  as  the  oldest  race  of  which 
we  have  any  knowledge.  The  wanderings  of 
these  people,  since  prehistoric  history  began,  have 
not  been  confined  to  the  African  continent.  In 
Paleolithic  times  the  black  man  roamed  at  will 
over  all  the  fairest  portions  of  the   Old  World. 

Europe,  as  well  as  Asia  and  Africa,  acknowledges 

9 


10  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

his  sway.  No  white  man  had  as  yet  appeared  to 
dispute  his  authority  in  the  vine-clad  valleys  of 
France  or  Germany,  or  upon  the  classic  hills  of 
Greece  or  Rome.  The  black  man  preceded  all 
others,  and  carried  Paleolithic  culture  to  its  very 
height.  But  the  history  of  all  lands  has  been  only 
a  record  of  succeeding  races.  Old  races  have  often 
been  supplanted  by  those  of  inferior  culture,  but 
of  superior  energy.  More  often,  however,  by 
fusion  of  different  racial  types,  and  by  the  min- 
gling of  various  tribes  and  peoples,  have  been 
evolved  new  races,  superior  to  any  of  the  original 
types. 

"  The  blacks  were  a  fundamental  element  in  the 
origin,  not  only  of  the  primitive  races  of  Southern 
Europe,  but  of  the  civilized  races  of  antiquity  as 
well.  History  may  be  said  to  begin  in  ancient 
Egypt,  and  recede  into  the  dim  past,  just  as  far  as 
records  and  inscriptions  lend  us  light.  Still  in  the 
Nile  valley  we  find  a  civilization  that  has  drawn 
from  all  succeeding  ages  expressions  of  wonder 
and  admiration.  Surely  these  ancient  Egyptians 
were  a  remarkable  people;  but  who  were  they? 
The  ruling  tribes  are  called  Hamites — the  sun- 
burnt family,  according  to  Dr.  Winchell;  of  Nig- 
ritic  origin,  says  Canon  Rawlinson.  But  back  of 
these  ruling  Hamites  were  a  light-headed  people — 
gay,  good-natured,  pleasant,  sportive,  witty,  droll, 
amorous — such  are  the  descriptive  terms  used  in 


THE  NEGRO  ETHNOLOGICALLY  CONSIDERED.  11 

telling  the  story  of  these  primitive  tribes,  who, 
Dr.  Taylor  says,  lived  peaceably  in  those  regions 
for  two  thousand  years  before  the  advent  of  the 
Asiatic  invaders.  Suggestive  as  they  may  seem, 
such  terms  are  truly  descriptive  of  the  inhabitants 
whom  we  would  expect  to  find  in  the  Nile  valley 
in  ancient  times.  They  were  probably  as  purely 
Nigritic  as  are  the  great  mass  of  our  own  Africo- 
Americans. 

"  When  the  Hamites  and  their  children  were  at 
the  height  of  their  power,  their  influence  extended 
to  far  greater  limits  than  is  ordinarily  supposed. 
They  pressed  toward  the  confines  of  Europe,  they 
entered  and  took  possession  of  the  land.  '  The 
Iberians,'  says  Dr.  Winchell  [North  American 
Review),  '  entered  by  the  pillars  of  Hercules.  They 
came  from  Northern  Africa,  at  a  time  when  the 
Hamitic  Berbers  were  gaining  possession.  They 
overran  the  Spanish  j)eninsula,  founded  cities, 
built  a  navy,  carried  on  commerce,  extended  their 
empire  over  Italy,  as  Sicanes,  when  Rome  was 
founded,  long  before  the  sack  of  Troy,  and  from 
Italy  passed  into  Sicily.'  The  Pelasgic  empire 
was  at  its  meridian  as  early  as  2500  B.C.  This 
people  came  from  the  islands  of  the  iEgian,  and 
more  remotely  from  Asia  Minor.  They  were  orig- 
inally a  branch  of  the  sun-burnt  Hamitic  stock, 
that  laid  the  basis  of  civilization  in  Canaan  and 
Mesopotamia,  destined  later  to  be  Semitized.  Rome 


12  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

itself  was  Pelasgian  to  428  B.C.  But  in  Greece 
and  Italy  the  Hamitic  stock  was  displaced  by 
Aryan,  as  in  Asia  it  had  been  by  Semitic. 

"  The  Hellenes  were  the  Aryans  first  to  be 
brought  into  contact  with  these  sun-burnt  Hamites, 
who,  let  it  be  remembered,  though  classed  as 
whites,  were  probably  as  strongly  Negritic  as  are 
the  Afro- Americans.  These  Hellenes  were  sav- 
ages or  barbarians.  But  Aryan  strength  and 
energy  were  thus  brought  into  contact  with  Ham- 
itic culture.  Then  occurred  that  great  struggle  of 
centuries  for  social  equality  between  the  blond 
Aryan  and  the  Pelasgian,  the  dark  child  of  the 
soil.  Had  it  not  been  for  that  mixture  of  dark 
blood  in  the  Greek  composition,  that  race  of 
poets,  artists,  and  philosophers  would  never  have 
existed." 

Thus  it  is  shown  that  the  negro  has  figured  con- 
spicuously in  the  earlier  history  of  the  world,  that 
his  blood  entered  strongly  into  that  of  the  con- 
quering Roman  and  the  cultured  Greek ;  that  even 
long  before  Rome  was  built  or  Greece  flourished, 
the  descendants  of  Ham  in  Egypt  had  given  to 
the  world  the  highest  form  of  civilization  it  had 
then  known. 

How  incredible  then  is  it  there  should  be  found 
any  who  deny  to  the  negro  the  possibility  of  high 
development.  For  two  thousand  years,  under  the 
repressive  conditions  of  savage  life  in  dark  Africa, 


THE  NEGRO  ETHNOLOGICALLY  CONSIDERED.  13 

it  is  true  that  lie  has  made  but  little  progress,  but 
this  does  not  show  the  want  of  racial  capacity  for 
evolution.  Who  could  have  foreseen  the  virile 
power  and  strength  of  the  Aryan  race?  For 
thousands  of  years  that  race  was  as  ignorant  and 
barbarous  as  the  African  in  the  jungles  of  his 
native  land,  but  when  at  length  the  proper  con- 
ditions for  its  development  were  furnished  by 
Providence,  he  sprang  into  splendid  development 
and  has  since  led  his  fellows  in  the  race  of  prog- 
ress and  civilization. 

When,  in  the  order  of  God,  the  same  favorable 
conditions  and  environments  shall  be  supplied  to 
the  descendants  of  Ham,  they  too  shall  respond  to 
the  opportunities  offered  and  develop  into  a  gradu- 
ally progressive  race,  worthy  to  stand  shoulder  to 
shoulder  with  their  white  brothers  on  any  field  of 
enterprise  and  achievement. 


CHAPTER   II. 

SLAVERY. 

AFRICAN  slavery  was  comparatively  a  mod- 
ern institution.  Slavery,  in  some  form,  has 
existed  from  the  earliest  times  of  which  history 
gives  any  record.  In  the  first  ages  of  Greece, 
before  Homer  sang  or  Hesiod  wrote,  it  was  already 
fully  established.  All  the  Grecian  communities 
were  a  slave-holding  people.  In  Athens,  Corinth 
and  Sparta  the  slaves  constituted  a  large  portion 
of  the  population. 

The  slaves  of  that  day,  however,  were  not 
negroes,  except  as  now  and  then  a  Nubian  or  an 
Ethiopian  was  captured  and  sold  into  slavery,  but 
they  were  whites,  chiefly  Thracians,  Asiatics  and 
even  native  Greeks.  The  sources  through  which 
the  supply  was  furnished,  were  captures  in  wars, 
piracy,  kidnapping  and  commerce  through  a  sys- 
tematic slave  trade. 

The  Romans,  according  to  Blair,  were  the  lead- 
ers among  the  ancient  peoples  in  extending  the 
operations  and  methodizing  the  details  of  slavery. 
The  patricians,  who  were  the  wealthy  and  ruling 
classes,  owned  thousands  of  slaves,  whom  they 
reduced  to  absolute  serfdom.  They  were  brought 
14 


SLA  VER  Y.  15 

mainly  from  Spain  and  Gaul  and  Asiatic  countries. 
So  numerous  did  they  become  in  Italy  that  the 
proportion  of  slaves  to  freemen  was  as  three  to 
one.  "  The  entire  number  of  slaves  would  thus 
have  been  in  the  reign  of  Claudius,  20,832,000; 
that  of  the  free  population  being  6,944,000." — 
Encyclopedia  Britannica. 

No  single  force,  perhaps,  contributed  more  to 
the  final  fall  and  dismemberment  of  the  Roman 
Empire  than  slavery.  To  this  evil  may  be  ascribed 
the  degeneracy  of  the  ruling  classes  who,  through 
the  luxury  and  idleness  begotten  of  it,  became 
sensual  and  effeminate,  and  lost  that  aggressive 
and  warlike  spirit  which  made  Rome  the  mistress 
of  the  world. 

With  the  rise  of  Christianity  to  controlling  influ- 
ence in  the  Roman  commonwealth  the  institution 
began  to  wane.  The  Church  protested  against  the 
multiplication  of  slaves  and  everywhere  encour- 
aged emancipation.  The  humanizing  influences  of 
religion  were  arrayed  against  the  cruelty  of  man 
enslaving  man,  and  the  enlightened  sentiment, 
wrought  through  a  growing  Christianity,  worked 
its  slow  but  final  death.  Theodosius  and  Justinian 
began  the  legislation  which  looked  to  the  manu- 
mission of  all  slaves  and  incorporated  laws  into  the 
Roman  code  which  finally  led  to  the  overthrow  of 
this  great  evil. 

It  is  not  the  design  of  these  pages  to  deal  at 


16  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN 

length  with  the  general  history  of  slavery.  It  will 
be  enough  to  say  in  this  connection,  that  the 
slaves  of  the  ancient  world  and  of  medieval  times 
were  chiefly  whites,  the  negro  constituting  but  a 
small  proportion  of  the  immense  multitudes  who 
pined  and  perished  amid  the  cruelties  of  enforced 
servitude. 

It  is  with  African  slavery,  perhaps  the  most 
gigantic  scheme  of  traffic  in  human  beings  known 
to  the  annals  of  the  race,  that  we  are  chiefly  con- 
cerned— an  institution  that  was  inaugurated  and 
fostered  by  the  Christian  nations  of  the  modern 
world,  and  that  perished  at  last  through  the  force 
of  a  moral  opposition  to  its  continuance,  which 
culminated  in  one  of  the  most  sanguinary  conflicts 
of  modern  times. 

African  slavery  in  North  America  had  its  be- 
ginning in  1620,  when  a  Dutch  ship  from  the 
coast  of  Guinea  visited  Jamestown  and  sold  a 
cargo  of  slaves  to  the  planters  of  Virginia.  From 
this  small  beginning  commenced  a  traffic  that 
brought  untold  wealth  to  the  slave-dealers,  and 
finally  resulted  in  locating  millions  of  the  African 
race  on  American  shores. 

England  must  ever  bear  a  large  portion  of  the 
odium  which  mankind  will  ever  attach  to  the 
wretched  slave  traffic,  although  it  is  but  just  to  say 
that  she  was  the  first  to  lead  in  the  fight  for  its 
abolition.     For  centuries,  however,  she  kept  this 


SLA  VER  Y.  17 

traffic  alive  by  supplying  the  markets  of  her  colo- 
nies and  legalizing  the  traffic  among  her  subjects. 
She  chartered  companies  with  exclusive  rights  to 
buy  and  sell  slaves,  and,  in  the  reign  of  William 
and  Mary,  she  no  longer  confined  it  to  favored  cor- 
porations, but  authorized  every  subject  of  the 
crown  likewise  to  engage  in  the  inhuman  business. 

Bryan  Edwards 'estimated  that  the  total  import 
of  African  slaves  into  all  the  British  colonies  of 
America  and  the  West  Indies  between  1680  and 
1786,  to  be  2,130,000,  or  an  average  of  20,095  per 
year  for  106  years.  It  was  not  until  the  year 
1833  that  the  English  parliament,  largely  through 
the  life-long  efforts  of  William  Wilberforce,  passed 
what  is  known  as  the  Emancipation  bill,  putting 
an  end  to  slavery  in  the  English  domains.  The 
bill  abolishing  the  traffic  in  slaves  was  passed 
twenty-six  years  before,  in  1807. 

France,  Spain,  Portugal,  Denmark  and  Holland 
must  share  with  England  the  shame  of  the  modern 
African  slave-trade,  and  of  fastening  the  institu- 
tion of  slavery  upon  America.  In  1791  the  num- 
ber of  European  factories  on  the  African  coast  for 
turning  out  slaves  for  the  world  was  forty.  Of 
these  fourteen  were  English,  three  French,  fifteen 
Dutch,  four  Portuguese  and  four  Danish. 

Thus  it  is  seen  that  the  hunting  of  human 
beings  in  Africa  for  the  slave-markets  of  the  world 
was  legalized   by  the  leading  and  most  civilized 


18  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

nations  of  the  globe  less  than  one  hundred  years 
ago.  All  that  power  and  wealth  could  do  to  bring 
the  traffic  into  existence,  and  to  continue  it  for 
over  two  hundred  years,  was  done.  The  native 
African  chiefs  were  bribed  by  foreign  money,  and 
thus  induced  to  capture  the  wild  savages  of  the 
forests,  sometimes  making  levies  upon  their  own 
immediate  subjects  to  exchange  them  for  com- 
modities supplied  by  European  slave  trafficers 
stationed  along  the  coasts.  We  quote  again  from 
the  "Britannica"  these  words:  "  They  often  set 
fire  to  a  village  by  night  and  captured  the  inhab- 
itants while  trying  to  escape.  Thus  all  that  was 
shocking  in  the  barbarism  of  Africa  was  multi- 
plied and  intensified  by  this  foreign  stimulation." 

"  To  the  miseries  thus  produced,  and  to  those 
suffered  by  the  captives  in  their  removal  to  the 
coast,  were  added  the  horrors  of  the  middle  pas- 
sage. Exclusive  of  the  slaves  who  died  before 
they  sailed  from  Africa,  twelve  and  one-half  per 
cent,  were  lost  during  their  passage  to  the  West 
Indies,  four  and  one-half  per  cent,  while  in  har- 
bors or  before  their  sale,  and  one-third  more  in 
the  seasoning.  Thus,  of  every  lot  of  one  hun- 
dred shipped  from  Africa,  seventeen  died  in  about 
nine  weeks,  and  not  more  than  fifty  lived  to  be 
effective  laborers  in  the  islands.  The  circum- 
stances of  their  subsequent  life  on  the  plantations 
were  not  favorable  to  the  increase  of  their  num- 


SLA  VER  Y.  19 

bers.  In  Jamaica  there  were,  in  1690,  forty  thou- 
sand African  slaves.  From  that  year  until  1820 
there  were  imported  800,000,  yet  at  the  latter  date 
there  were  only  340,000."  The  record  does  not 
show  such  great  fatality  with  those  cargoes  shipped 
to  what  are  now  the  United  States,  but  it  was  a 
dark  picture  of  suffering  and  cruelty. 

I  have  thus  briefly  alluded  to  some  general  facts 
in  the  history  of  the  introduction  of  African 
slavery  into  America,  now  happily  abolished  both 
as  a  traffic  and  an  institution.  It  was  born  of  the 
cupidity  of  mankind  and  kept  alive  for  centuries 
for  the  ends  of  gain.  That  it  was  right,  even 
those  who  once  most  heartily  approved  of  and  ad- 
vocated it,  would  not  now  contend.  It  is,  indeed, 
a  painful  page  to  look  upon,  and  were  it  not,  that 
through  its  dark  lines  we  may  now  trace  the  mys- 
terious guidings  of  Providence,  it  would  be  unre- 
lieved by  a  single  alleviating  reflection. 

The  student  of  history,  looking  at  it  in  the  light 
of  divine  direction  in  the  affairs  of  this  world,  may 
discover  the  purpose  of  God  to  accomplish  his 
ends,  overruling  even  the  "wrath  of  man,"  and 
making  it  contribute  to  the  consummation  of  his 
will. 

The  bondage  of  the  Israelites  in  Egypt  seemed 
a  dark  and  inexplicable  fate  for  the  chosen  chil- 
dren of  God,  but  the  outcome  of  it  was  the  found- 
ing, forming  and  cementing  of  the  Jewish  nation, 


20  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

which  was  to  play  such  an  important  part  in  all 
the  subsequent  history  of  the  human  race. 

Who  can  tell,  and  the  dawning  light  of  the  Di- 
vine purpose  begins  even  now  to  reveal  itself,  but 
that  it  was  to  be,  through  this  means,  that  the 
Almighty  intends  to  work  out  the  final  redemp- 
tion of  the  African  race  in  these  lands,  and  the 
far-oif  dark  continent,  which  is  now  offering  such 
fertile  and  inviting  fields  for  missionary  and  evan- 
gelical effort  and  enterprise? 

The  Jewish  nation,  since  its  disintegration  and 
scattering  abroad,  has  passed  through  scarcely  a 
less  fiery  baptism  of  suffering  and  cruelty  than  has 
fallen  to  the  lot  of  the  slave  exiles  from  African 
shores.  They  have  been  hunted  in  all  lands,  de- 
spised, cast  out  and  killed  by  the  Gentiles,  with 
whom  they  have  been  forced  to  dwell.  It  may  be, 
too,  that  through  their  pathetic  wanderings  the 
golden  thread  of  Providence  runs,  and  that,  re- 
deemed and  Christianized,  they  will  some  day 
return  to  their  native  land,  and  build  up  again  the 
broken  foundations  of  their  once  splendid  king- 
dom which,  in  grandeur  and  glory,  shall  far  sur- 
pass the  greatness  of  the  old  Hebrew  monarchy  in 
its  palmiest  days,  when  the  wealth  and  power  of 
Solomon  excited  the  admiration  and  wonder  of  the 
queen  of  Sheba. 

At  least  while  we  may  not  approve,  but  even 
condemn  the  cruelty  and  inhumanity  which  led  to 


SLAVERY.  21 

the  introduction  of  African  slavery  upon  this  con- 
tinent, and  which  marked  and  marred  its  continu- 
ance, we  may  yet  believe  that  it  was  permitted  by 
the  Almighty  for  wise  and  glorious  purposes,  and 
will  issue  at  length  in  the  elevation  of  the  negro 
race  to  a  condition  of  enlightened,  Christian  civi- 
lization he  could  not  otherwise  have  attained. 
How  else  can  he  interpret  that  Providence,  which 
permitted  the  existence  of  slavery  so  long,  and 
which,  at  length,  as  strangely  and  signally,  put  an 
end  to  its  existence,  not  only  in  the  United  States, 
but  in  every  country  of  the  globe? 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  EVILS  OF  AFRICAN  SLAVERY. 

IN  considering  this  evil  we  are  not  to  suppose 
that  the  negro  was  the  only  sufferer  from  it. 
The  slave-holder  was  the  victim  of  the  indirect 
consequences  of  the  system  which  was  fraught 
with  injury  to  all  who  were  connected  with  it. 

In  what  I  am  about  to  say  I  am  free  to  admit 
that  there  were  many  humane  masters — masters 
who  were  kind  to  their  slaves,  who  afforded  them 
every  advantage  and  consideration  possible  under 
the  system.  But  to  preserve  and  perpetuate  the 
system,  it  was  necessary  to  keep  the  slave  in 
ignorance  and  to  ever  remind  him  of  his  menial 
position.  Laws  were  enacted  prohibiting  his  learn- 
ing to  read  or  write,  and  his  owner  was  authorized 
to  inflict  the  most  severe  corporal  punishment 
short  of  death.  He  could  even  delegate  this 
authority  to  an  agent,  who,  having  no  pecuniary 
interest  in  the  slave,  was  often  unspeakably  cruel 
in  the  severity  with  which  he  exercised  his  dele- 
gated authority. 

Such  a  system,  practically  placing  no  restraint 
upon  the  power  and  rights  of  the  master,  could  but 
22 


THE  E  VILS  OF  AFRICAN  SLA  VER  Y.  23 

be  abused  and  to  what  extent  only  the  secrets  of 
the  final  day  will  reveal. 

Before  pointing  out  the  evils  of  slavery  as  it 
affected  the  slave  himself,  let  us  mention  briefly 
its  indirect  consequences  to  the  slave-holders. 

First,  it  developed  a  class  of  landed  gentry  in 
the  South,  who,  while  they  wrere  not  titled,  were 
more  absolutely  lords  than  the  dukes  and  earls 
and  barons  of  England.  The  immense  wealth, 
wrought  for  them  by  slave  labor,  exempted  them 
from  the  necessity  of  toil,  and  removed  all  incen- 
tives to  enter  upon  those  bold  enterprises  requir- 
ing individual  effort  and  push,  which  have  given 
such  distinctive  strength  and  success  to  the  citi- 
zenship of  the  North  and  West.  For  them,  it  was 
a  day  of  luxurious  ease,  whiled  away  in  amuse- 
ment and  pleasure,  an  era  of  idleness  and  sensu- 
ality, second  only  to  that  which  marked  the 
Augustan  age  of  Rome  when  that  empire  reached 
the  zenith  of  its  wealth  and  glory,  and  which  was 
the  beginning  and  the  cause  of  the  final  downfall 
of  that  colossal  power.  The  splendid  mansions  of 
the  Southern  gentry,  adorned  with  Doric  columns, 
majestic  and  imposing,  their  rich  and  fertile  fields 
stretching  away  in  the  distance  white  with  the 
fleecy  staple,  their  hundreds  of  slaves  felling  the 
forests  and  toiling  on  the  old  plantations,  present 
a  picture  of  lordly  wealth  and  splendid  ease,  with- 
out a  parallel  in  the  history  of  the  world.     The 


24  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

Roman  patrician  and  the  English  lord  were 
paupers  beside  this  landed  aristocracy  of  the 
South. 

The  consequence  to  these  wealthy  slave-holders 
was  the  dwarfing  of  the  spirit  of  enterprise  and 
genuine,  robust  manhood,  of  that  strong  self-asser- 
tive individuality  which  is  the  first  requisite  of  a 
freeman.  The  Southern  planter  grew  to  be  a 
pleasure  lover,  a  dreamy  epicurean,  a  worshipper 
at  the  shrine  of  ease  and  sensuality.  His  children 
grew  up  in  the  same  atmosphere — strangers  to  toil 
and  self-reliance.  In  tranquil  languor  they  passed 
their  lives,  never  having  to  strike  one  blow  in  the 
struggle  for  existence.  For  this  condition  slavery 
was  responsible,  and  they  reaped  from  it  the  har- 
vest of  a  dwarfed  physical  development,  and  of  a 
deadening  industrial  paralysis  from  which  their 
descendants  have  not  recovered  to  this  day. 

Even  the  poor  whites,  who  owned  no  slaves,  had 
to  pay  the  penalty  of  their  proximity  to  slavery. 
The  slave-holder  bought  up  as  rapidly  as  he  could 
the  lands  of  the  South,  and  the  landless  white 
denizen  was  elbowed  off  to  the  barren  sections,  or 
else  forced  to  remain  where  the  competition  with 
slave  labor  was  so  sharp  that  he  could  scarcely 
find  employment,  or  if  he  did,  the  wages  he  re- 
ceived were  so  scanty  that  he  could  barely  subsist. 
In  the  race  of  life  he  had  the  smallest  chance  of 
success,  and  was  doomed  to  live  and  die  where  the 


THE  EVILS  OF  AFRICAN  SLA  VER  Y.  25 

conditions  of  his  environment  were  well-nigh  fatal 
to  his  betterment. 

Under  the  institution  of  slavery,  the  South  was 
limited  in  her  industrial  development  to  the  single 
line  of  agriculture.  Slave  labor  was  most  profit- 
able in  the  cotton  fields  and  on  the  sugar  planta- 
tions. Here  no  skilled  artisans,  no  trained  me- 
chanics were  needed;  only  muscle  and  brawn  were 
required  to  till  the  soil,  and  gather  its  products. 
As  fast  as  wealth  grew  it  was  converted  into  more 
slaves,  and  thus  the  industry  and  capital  of  the 
South  were  confined  to  agriculture.  But  few  fac- 
tories were  built.  Manufacturing  was  at  a  dis- 
count. No  great  cities  were  founded  and  populated. 
Commerce  was  neglected,  shops,  furnaces,  mills, 
and,  indeed,  every  branch  of  industrial  enterprise 
was  largely,  if  not  wholly,  neglected.  These  es- 
tablishments were  left  to  Northern  money  and 
Northern  enterprise.  And,  as  history  has  not  fur- 
nished a  single  instance  of  a  people,  devoted  solely 
to  agricultural  pursuits,  rising  to  commanding  and 
permanent  place  and  power,  the  logical  inference 
is  that,  under  slavery,  the  South  would  have  been 
eventually  the  least  prosperous  section  of  the 
Union,  if  the  abolition  of  slavery  had  never  been 
effected.  This  fact  made  the  South  almost  help- 
less at  the  close  of  the  war  between  the  States. 
She  will  rise  to  industrial  prosperity,  now,  only  as 
she  diversifies  her  enterprises.     This  she  is  doing 


26  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

rapidly,  and  this  is  one  of  the  good  results  flowing 
from  the  abolition  of  slavery. 

Time  would  fail  us  to  enumerate  the  evils  re- 
sulting to  the  moral  character  and  social  well-being 
of  the  Southern  people  from  the  presence  of  Afri- 
can slavery  in  their  midst.  The  influence  of  this 
institution,  in  every  moral  view  of  it,  was  bad,  and 
only  bad.  It  developed  a  race  of  masters — a  re- 
lation out  of  place  in  a  world  the  Almighty  in- 
tended to  be  free.  Ownership  in  flesh  and  blood 
was  never  a  right  designed  by  God  to  be  conferred 
on  any  man.  It  is  fatal  to  him  who  exercises  it, 
as  well  as  to  him  upon  whom  it  is  exercised  It 
creates  a  spirit  of  authority  and  of  imperious 
haughtiness  that  destroys  that  brotherhood  of  men, 
which  the  Almighty  made  to  be  the  relation  of 
men. 

The  violence  done  to  himself  by  the  owner- 
ship of  his  human  brother  was  one  of  the  greatest 
evils  the  Southern  slave-holders  reaped  from  slav- 
ery. The  involuntary  servitude  of  the  man  whom 
God  made  as  free  himself,  the  groans  and  cries  of 
human  beings  evoked  by  the  lash  in  hands  that 
wielded  it  only  by  the  right  of  power,  the  appro- 
priation of  the  products  of  toil  not  his  own,  the 
abasement  and  degradation  of  human  souls  for 
selfish  aggrandizement — this  was  the  spectacle  the 
Southern  slave-holder  had  daily  to  behold,  and  it 
was  enough  to  blight  his  sense  of  moral  responsi- 


THE  E  VILS  OF  AFRICAN  SLA  VER  Y.  27 

bility,  and  destroy  the  God-given  instinct  of  right 
as  between  man  and  man. 

We  might  allude  to  the  evil  of  miscegenation,  an 
evil  which  began  in  slavery,  and  which  is  still  going 
on  with  shameful  flagrancy.  It  is  not  a  matter  of 
conjecture  or  supposition,  but  of  history  and  fact, 
that  the  fairest  and  most  comely  negro  girls  were 
appropriated  by  the  young  white  men  of  the  South, 
and  devoted  to  the  ends  of  unholy  lust;  and  to  the 
family  domestics  thousands  of  mulatto  children 
were  born.  This  was  bad  enough,  but,  when  to 
this  was  added  the  fact  that  these  children  were 
born  slaves,  and  herded  with  slaves,  and  that  these 
white  fathers  had  to  witness  their  own  offspring 
growing  up  to  lives  of  bondage,  and  subject  to  the 
whip  of  the  overseer,  it  was  enough  to  harden  and 
blunt  the  sensibilities  of  their  souls. 

But  why  multiply  arguments  to  show  the  evils 
of  slavery  upon  the  slave-holders  themselves,  when 
the  white  people  of  the  South  have  long  since  seen 
and  admitted  them.  Slavery,  in  its  effects  upon 
the  white  man,  was  scarcely  less  injurious  than  it 
was  upon  the  slave  himself. 

The  direct  consequences  of  slavery  upon  the 
negro  (none  but  God  can  estimate  the  ultimate 
outgrowth  of  it)  were  evil,  and  only  evil. 

First,  in  his  case,  as  in  the  case  of  all  slaves,  it 
repressed  all  real  manhood,  and  destroyed  that  in- 
dividuality and  aspiration  of  spirit,  which  are  the 


28  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE   WHITE  MAN. 

first  conditions  of  self-respecting  character,  either 
in  an  individual  or  in  a  race.  Taught  and  com- 
pelled to  obey,  he  could  but  walk  in  the  marked- 
out  path  of  another's  will,  and,  hence,  all  inde- 
pendence and  self-active  power  were  denied  him. 
He  was  simply  a  machine,  a  mere  automaton,  a 
tethered  ox  in  a  tread-mill,  going  the  weary  rounds 
of  an  appointed  jmth,  which  he  could  not  leave  or 
change. 

The  thought  of  a  life  in  which  volition  played  a 
part  was  foreign  to  him,  chained  as  he  was  to  the 
will  of  a  master.  History  furnishes  no  instance 
of  individual  or  race  elevation  without  the  boon 
of  personal  liberty.  Moral  and  intellectual  ad- 
vancement is  as  impossible  to  the  slave  as  the 
sight  of  the  sun  is  to  the  man  without  eyes.  This 
was  one  of  the  most  potent,  as  well  as  one  of  the 
most  pathetic,  evils  incident  to  slavery,  and  the 
memory  of  it  still  brings  tears  to  the  eyes  of  those  to 
whom  the  benighting  influences  of  the  system  left 
sensibility  sufficient  to  estimate  the  force  of  such 
deprivation. 

The  evils  of  slavery  were  augmented  further  by 
the  ignorance  it  entailed.  Enlightenment  of  the 
slave  meant  menace  to  the  institution,  and  the 
Southern  slaveholder  was  consistent  when  he 
enacted  legislation  forbidding  the  instruction  of 
his  slaves  in  the  rudimentary  branches  of  educa- 
tion.   And  so  his  lot  was  not  only  that  of  absolute 


THE  EVILS  OF  AFRICAN  SLA  VER  Y.  29 

servitude,  but  also  of  absolute  ignorance.  What 
argument  could  be  made  for  an  institution,  the 
strongest  pillar  of  which  was  ignorance  ?  Is  it 
possible  that  the  Divine  Being  ever  intended  any 
of  his  creatures  to  live  under  conditions,  the  pres- 
ervation of  which  demands  the  total  and  con- 
tinual benightment  of  their  minds  and  souls  ? 
The  great  mass  of  the  negroes  of  the  South  grew 
up  in  dense  ignorance,  and  the  race  to-day,  though 
struggling  np  to  some  degree  of  knowledge,  is  suf- 
fering from  the  effects  of  that  enforced  ignorance. 

It  would  be  a  work  of  unnecessary  expense  both 
of  time  and  material,  to  enlarge  upon  the  moral 
and  religious  injury  the  system  of  slavery  inflicted 
upon  the  negro.  In  many  instances,  and  we 
record  it  gratefully,  religious  instruction  was  af- 
forded to  the  slave.  Such  men  as  Bishop  Capers 
and  Rev.  William  J.  Sasnett,  D.D.,  of  the  South- 
ern Methodist  Church,  and  Jesse  Murcer  and  Dr. 
Mallory,  of  the  Baptist  Church,  gave  of  their 
strength  and  money  to  preach  and  send  the  gos- 
pel to  the  benighted  slaves  of  the  South.  But 
taking  into  the  account  all  that  was  done  by  the 
pious  ministers  and  laymen  among  the  whites,  the 
fact  still  remains  that  the  multitudes  of  Southern 
negroes  grew  up,  lived  and  died  without  adequate 
religious  or  moral  instruction. 

As  a  consequence,  those  moral  principles  and 
qualities  which  are  the  requisites  of  virtuous  life, 


30  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

were  dwarfed  or  wholly  eradicated  for  the  time. 
Many  have  harshly  judged  the  colored  race  for  the 
want  of  moral  purity.  They  do  not  take  into 
consideration  their  condition  and  environment  for 
more  than  two  hundred  years.  I  believe  it  to  be 
a  fact,  that  no  race,  similarly  situated,  can  show 
any  better  moral  record  than  my  own. 

How  could  there  be  a  moral  atmosphere  amidst 
the  miasmatic  surroundings  of  slavery?  There 
could  be  no  home  in  the  true  sense  of  that  word, 
and  hence  no  home  instruction.  There  was  no 
lawful  wedlock.  Husband  and  wife  they  were 
only  in  name,  and  these  were  separated  at  the 
caprice,  cupidity  or  misfortune  of  their  owner. 
Virtue  was  an  impossibility  when  maternity  in  or 
out  of  wedlock  was  encouraged  by  the  master  and 
a  premium  put  thereupon.  The  wonder  is,  that 
under  such  a  system  there  could  be  found  a  single 
instance  of  moral  purity  among  the  whole  race. 

The  physical  evils  of  slavery  were  great.  Pun- 
ishment was  meted  out  by  the  law  of  will,  and 
stripes  were  the  daily  portion  of  the  negro.  No 
good  can  be  accomplished  by  recalling  the  suffer- 
ings of  that  bondage  time.  Rather  would  we 
draw  the  veil  of  oblivion  over  it  and  forget  it  as 
we  march  on  to  the  destiny  of  an  enlightened, 
educated  and  useful  citizenship. 

I  believe  there  are  but  a  few  among  the  whites 
of  the  South  who  would  claim  now  that  slavery 


THE  E  VILS  OF  AFRICAN  SLA  VER  V.  31 

was  a  blessing  to  either  race.  On  the  other  hand 
the  great  masses  of  the  Southern  whites  recognize 
what  a  tremendous  injury  it  was  to  them  as  well 
as  the  slaves,  and  would  not  re-enact  it  if  they 
could. 

The  time  for  its  extinction  had  come  in  the 
order  and  by  the  will  of  Providence.  That  God 
will  ultimately  bring  good  out  of  this  mighty  evil, 
which  pressed  so  long  upon  the  South  like  a  ter- 
rible incubus,  I  can  but  believe.  When  we  as  a 
race  can  stand  upon  the  green  fields  of  our  ap- 
pointed Caanan,  emancipated  not  only  from  politi- 
cal bondage,  but  free  from  the  shackles  of  vice  and 
ignorance,  we  may  be  permitted  to  see  that  through 
all  the  dark  way  we  came  God  was  leading  to  final 
happiness  and  real  freedom. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

AGITATION  BY  ABOLITIONISTS. 

WILLIAM  WILBERFORCE,  statesman,  phi- 
lanthropist and  orator,  is  entitled  to  the 
first  place  among  the  great  English  leaders  in  the 
struggle  for  emancipation.  In  every  place  and  on 
every  occasion  his  eloquent  voice  was  lifted  against 
slavery.  In  parliament,  on  the  hustings,  on  the 
rostrum  he  plead  for  the  freedom  of  the  negro. 
His  pen,  too,  was  enlisted  in  the  cause  he  so  much 
loved,  until  at  length  he  literally  created  a  moral 
sentiment  in  England  which  was  resistless  in  its 
sweep  and  which  ultimated  at  last  in  the  complete 
triumph  of  abolition.  Through  his  efforts,  backed 
by  many  noble  spirits,  the  Emancipation  Bill,  as 
has  been  already  stated,  was  passed  in  August, 
1833,  one  month  after  his  death.  He  had  given  a 
lifetime  to  the  work  of  lifting  from  his  country  the 
stigma  of  slavery,  and  died  just  as  the  accomp- 
lishment of  his  mission  was  in  sight.  Like  Lin- 
coln and  John  Brown,  he  was  permitted  to  catch 
a  view  of  the  promised  land,  to  the  borders  of 
which  they  had  led  the  oppressed  and  down-trod- 
den sons  of  Ham,  but  was  not  permitted  to  enter 
with  them  and  behold  their  joy  as  they  rested  in 

32 


A  GITA  TION  BY  AB  OLITIONIS  TS.  33 

the  fertile  fields  and  vine-clad  hills  of  freedom. 
The  name  of  William  Wilberforce  will  live  as  long 
as  liberty  is  prized  and  philanthropy  is  honored. 

In  America  Wm.  Lloyd  Garrison  stands  at  the 
head  of  the  long  list  of  agitators  who  finally  tri- 
umphed against  slavery.  Many  distinguished  men, 
however,  even  before  Garrison  was  born,  are  on 
record  in  American  history  as  against  the  institu- 
tion of  slavery.  George  Washington  was  opposed 
to  it,  and  in  his  last  will  inserted  a  clause  provid- 
ing for  the  manumission  of  his  slaves.  Thomas 
Jefferson,  the  author  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, recognized  its  evils,  and  no  abolitionist 
ever  used  stronger  language  in  condemning  it.  In 
speaking  of  the  slaves  he  used  the  expression 
"our  brethren,"  showing  his  recognition  of  the 
bond  of  a  common  humanity  with  the  meanest 
slave  that  toiled  in  the  tobacco  fields  of  Virginia. 
But,  notwithstanding  the  influence  of  these  and 
other  great  names,  slavery  grew  and  spread  in  the 
South  and  Southwest,  until  at  the  beginning  of 
the  war  between  the  states  there  were  more  than 
four  millions  of  slaves  in  the  United  States. 

To  combat  this  growing  evil  Providence  seemed 
to  have  raised  up  Wm.  Lloyd  Garrison,  who  was 
born  at  Newburyport,  Mass.,  December  10th,  1805. 
His  profound  belief  in  his  mission,  his  untiring 
devotion  to  it,  his  adaptation  by  nature  for  leader- 
ship in  a  great  reform  movement,  his  peculiar  gifts 
3 


34  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

as  a  writer,  all  conspired  to  make  him  an  agitator 
and  a  leader  of  wonderful  power. 

It  was  in  the  Genius,  a  paper  published  in  Bal- 
timore, that  he  first  began  to  espouse,  publicly,  the 
cause  of  immediate  emancipation.  His  fiery  denun- 
ciation of  the  system  of  slavery  provoked  at  once 
the  bitter  resentment  and  opposition  of  the  slave- 
holders of  the  South.  A  vessel,  owned  in  New- 
buryport,  transported  a  shipload  of  slaves  from 
Baltimore  to  New  Orleans.  This  procedure  he 
characterized  as  an  act  of  "  domestic  piracy,"  and 
declared  his  design  to  "  cover  with  infamy "  the 
participants  in  this  shameful  affair.  He  was  prose- 
cuted by  the  owner  of  the  vessel,  convicted,  fined 
fifty  dollars  and  costs  of  trial,  and  in  default  of 
payment  thereof,  was  committed  to  jail.  His  con- 
viction and  imprisonment  produced  great  excite- 
ment at  the  time  throughout  the  whole  country. 
The  poet,  John  G.  Whittier,  interceded  with  Henry 
Clay,  then  a  pro-slavery  advocate,  to  pay  the  fine 
and  secure  the  release  of  Garrison,  but  before  Mr. 
Clay  had  time  to  comply,  as  he  had  consented  to 
do,  Mr.  Arthur  Tappan,  a  merchant  of  New  York, 
discharged  the  fine  and  the  costs,  and  Mr.  Garrison 
was  liberated  after  seven  weeks  of  imprisonment. 

Seeing  the  difficulty  in  prosecuting  his  crusade 
in  an  atmosphere  so  hostile,  he  at  once  dissolved 
his  connection  with  the  Genius,  and  established  in 
Boston  a  paper,  which  he  named  the  Liberator. 


A  GITA  TION  BY  AB  OLITIONISTS.  35 

The  first  issue  of  this  paper,  which  was  destined 
to  such  a  remarkable  history,  was  published  in 
January,  1831.  In  his  editorial  address  to  the 
people  of  the  United  States,  he  used  these  words, 
which  have  become  memorable,  "  I  am  in  earnest, 
I  will  not  equivocate,  I  will  not  excuse,  I  will  not 
retreat  a  single  inch,  and  I  will  be  heard."  The 
paper  began  with  little  circulation  and  influence. 
Garrison  was  forced  to  sleep  in  the  dingy  apart- 
ments of  his  printing  office,  and  it  was  with  great 
difficulty  that  he  kept  the  paper  from  suspending 
in  the  first  few  months  of  its  existence.  It  lived 
on,  however,  growing  in  influence  and  circulation, 
until  it  became  the  mouthpiece  of  the  Abolition 
party  at  the  North.  It  lived  to  print  President 
Lincoln's  Emancipation  Proclamation,  and  the 
Thirteenth  and  Fourteenth  Amendments  to  the 
Constitution,  forever  prohibiting  slavery  in  the 
United  States  of  America. 

The  first  society  organized  by  Mr.  Garrison  was 
the  New  England  Anti-Slavery  Society,  which 
issued  its  manifesto  in  1832.  In  this  same  year 
Mr.  Garrison  published  a  work  entitled,  "Thoughts 
on  African  Colonization,"  in  which  he  showed  that 
the  American  Colonization  Society  was,  in  reality, 
an  organization  in  the  interest  of  slavery,  and  its 
principles  and  objects  in  no  sense  a  remedy  for  the 
evils  of  slavery. 

In  1833  Mr.  Garrison  went  to  England.     There 


36  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

he  met  Wilberforce,  Clarkson,  Buxton,  O'Connell, 
George  Thompson,  and  others,  who  gave  him  a 
cordial  reception,  and  their  hearty  co-operation  in 
his  great  work.  He  was  successful  in  undeceiving 
the  English  people  as  to  the  design  and  character 
of  the  American  Colonization  Society,  and  brought 
back  with  him  a  protest  against  it,  signed  by  Wil- 
berforce, Thackeray,  Macaulay,  Gurney,  Evans, 
Buxton,  O'Connell,  and  many  other  distinguished 
anti-slavery  gentlemen. 

Mr.  Garrison's  visit  to  England  enraged  the  pro- 
slavery  people  of  the  United  States,  and,  upon  his 
return,  fresh  outbursts  of  denunciation  against 
him  were  heard  on  every  hand,  and  mobs  were  or- 
ganized to  suppress  the  public  discussion  of  the 
slavery  question.  Now  was  inaugurated  what 
Harriet  Martineau  was  pleased  to  call  the  "  Martyr 
Age  of  America."  The  opposition  to  the  Aboli- 
tion movement  was  not  confined  to  the  South.  It 
met  violent  resistance  at  the  North,  and  Boston 
itself  was  the  centre  of  mob  violence  against  the 
Anti-Slavery  agitators.  Mr.  Thomson,  an  English 
gentleman,  and  an  eloquent  Abolition  speaker,  who 
had  come  to  America  with  Mr.  Garrison,  was 
treated  with  great  indignity  by  the  enemies  of 
emancipation.  His  appearance  in  New  England 
became  the  signal  for  a  mob,  and  in  1835  he  was 
compelled  to  return  to  England  to  save  his  life. 
Just  before  his  departure  it  was  announced  that  he 


A  GITA  TION  BY  AB  OLITIONISTS.  37 

would  address  the  "  Woman's  Anti-Slavery  Society 
of  New  England."  This  announcement  brought 
out  a  mob  of  the  society  gentlemen  of  Boston,  from 
whose  violence,  had  he  appeared  at  the  appointed 
place,  he  would  probably  not  have  escaped  with 
his  life.  The  whole  city  was  excited,  and  the  mob 
seized  Mr.  Garrison,  who,  when  they  had  well-nigh 
torn  his  clothing  from  him,  was  dragged  through 
the  streets  of  Boston  by  the  wild  and  infuriated 
crowds,  wrought  up  to  fanatical  fury.  A  rope  was 
placed  around  his  body,  with  which  they  evidently 
intended  to  hang  him,  had  he  not  been  rescued  by 
the  friends  of  law  and  order.  He  was  placed  in 
jail  for  security,  and  subsequently  secretly  carried 
out  of  the  city  by  his  friends. 

For  several  years  these  outbreaks  of  violence 
were  kept  up  here  and  there,  but  the  flame  of  op- 
position to  American  slavery  which  had  been 
kindled  could  not  be  extinguished,  and  waxed  hot 
and  hotter.  In  1844  William  Garrison  was  made 
president  of  the  American  Emancipation  Society, 
which  position  he  continued  to  hold  until  the  day 
of  emancipation,  when  it  was  disbanded.  He 
labored  with  tongue  and  pen  until  he  saw  with 
joy  the  consummation  of  his  life-work,  and  died 
in  New  York  city  May  24,  1879,  in  the  seventy- 
fourth  year  of  his  age,  and  was  buried  in  Boston, 
the  scene  of  his  trials  and  triumphs. 

Time  would  fail  me   to  record  here  the  names 


38  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

and  work  of  all  the  great  spirits  who  took  part  in 
the  movement  for  the  freedom  of  the  African 
slaves  in  America.  I  will  be  pardoned  for  a  brief 
allusion  to  some  of  the  chief  actors  in  that  great 
and  tragic  drama,  in  the  execution  of  which  thou- 
sands perished  on  the  battle-field  or  came  forth  to 
victory,  at  length  wearing  the  laurels  of  enduring 
fame. 

Wendell  Phillips  was  the  great  orator  of  the 
anti-slavery  crusade  whose,  eloquence  pleaded  the 
cause  of  freedom.  As  a  speaker,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  he  was  above  all 
others  the  popular  favorite,  and  led  on  the  crusade 
with  a  fiery  and  commanding  eloquence.  As  Pat- 
rick Henry  was  the  mouthpiece  of  the  Colonies  in 
their  revolt  from  England,  so  Wendell  Phillips 
was  the  voice  of  the  American  philanthropists 
who  led  on  the  movement  to  break  the  bondage  of 
the  negro  in  America  and  free  him  from  his  South- 
ern master.  Wendell  Phillips  has  recently  passed 
up  to  his  reward,  and  millions  of  stars  will  gleam 
forever  in  his  crown,  standing  for  the  millions  of 
his  race  for  whose  liberty  he  plead,  and  perhaps 
did  as  much,  as  any  instrument  that  Providence 
employed,  to  accomplish. 

The  negro  in  America  can  never  forget  the  debt 
he  owes  to  Mrs.  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  for  the 
services  she  rendered  to  the  cause  of  his  freedom. 
Her  wonderful  contribution  to  the  literature  of  the 


A GITA TION  BY  AB OLITIONISTS.  3 9 

anti-slavery  crusade  in  the  volume  entitled  "  Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin,"  did  more  perhaps  to  arouse  uni- 
versal sympathy  for  the  American  slaves  and 
crystallize  sentiment  for  immediate  emancipation 
than  any  other  one  agency  of  Providence.  And 
yet  at  first  it  was  coldly  received,  and  the  author 
herself  was  sorely  disappointed  at  the  treatment 
it  was  given,  even  by  the  anti-slavery  public.  She 
says,  speaking  of  the  time  when  it  was  first  is- 
sued :  "  It  seemed  to  me  that  there  was  no  hope  ; 
that  nobody  would  hear,  that  nobody  would  read, 
nobody  would  pity ;  that  this  frightful  system, 
which  had  pursued  its  victims  into  the  free 
states,  might  at  last  threaten  them  even  in 
Canada." 

Notwithstanding,  in  five  years  from  the  date  of 
the  issue  of  this  most  wonderful  book,  nearly 
500,000  copies  were  sold  in  the  United  States 
alone.  No  book  has  ever  had  such  a  circulation 
except  the  Bible,  and  no  book  ever  accomplished 
so  much  for  the  human  race  except  the  Bible.  It 
was  read  in  the  homes  and  by  the  firesides  of  the 
North,  and  by  the  friends  of  freedom  everywhere. 
Its  pathetic  recital  of  the  sufferings  of  the  South- 
ern negro  drew  tears  from  millions  who  had  never 
seen  a  slave,  and  created  a  hatred  for  the  system 
of  slavery  in  countless  human  hearts.  The  good 
woman  whose  "  pen  was  as  mighty  as  the  sword," 
passed  away  a  short  while  since,  embalmed  in  the 


40  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

love  and  grateful  memory  of  those  she  helped  to 
free. 

Fred  Douglas,  whose  mother  was  a  negro  slave 
in  Maryland,  must  not  be  omitted  from  the  record 
of  those  who  took  a  conspicuous  part  in  the  annals 
of  those  times.  He  ran  away  from  his  home  when 
quite  a  youth,  and  settled  at  New  Bedford,  Massa- 
chusetts. Here  he  changed  his  name  from  Loyd 
to  Douglas.  In  1811  he  was  offered  the  agency 
of  the  Massachusetts  Anti-Slavery  Society.  In 
this  capacity  he  traveled  through  the  New  Eng- 
land States  for  four  years.  Large  audiences  were 
attracted  by  his  graphic  descriptions  of  the  evils  of 
slavery,  and  by  his  eloquent  appeals  for  sympathy 
and  help  on  the  behalf  of  his  race.  From  this 
time  on  down  to  emancipation,  he  labored  with 
his  tongue  and  pen  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  in 
the  United  States.  When  the  volume  of  the  re- 
cord is  fully  made  up,  it  will  be  seen  that  this 
half-breed,  Frederick  Douglas,  is  not  a  whit  behind 
the  chiefest  apostle  of  the  gospel  of  liberty.  He 
was  honored  by  President  Hayes  as  Recorder  of 
Deeds  and  Marshal  of  the  District  of  Columbia. 
President  Harrison  conferred  upon  him  the  post  of 
Minister  to  Hayti.  Thus  this  distinguished  phi- 
lanthropist and  orator,  perhaps  the  most  drserv- 
edly  famous  man  of  his  race  in  all  its  history,  was 
honored  by  his  country  at  last.  He  died  in  Wash- 
ington city  in  February,  1895,  and  was  buried 
with  appropriate  honors. 


CHAPTER   Y. 

THE  IRREPRESSIBLE  CONFLICT  AT  HAND. 

THE  day  of  deliverance  was  now  approaching. 
The  crisis  in  the  irrepressible  conflict  was 
near  at  hand.  The  South  would  listen  to  no  com- 
promise, and  the  Abolition  party  at  the  North 
was  equally  determined.  God  has  decreed  that 
there  is  to  be  no  "  let  up  "  in  the  conflict  between 
right  and  wrong,  no  cessation  of  hostilities  between 
truth  and  error,  no  armistice  in  the  battle  between 
liberty  and  oppression.  The  struggle  is  on  to  the 
finish,  and  he  is  no  part  of  a  prophet  that  does  not 
see  in  right,  truth,  and  liberty,  the  conquering  forces. 
Events  may  delay,  but  cannot  finally  defeat  the 
triumph  of  these  principles,  anchored,  as  they  are, 
to  the  throne  of  God.  In  the  language  of  the 
poet : 

Truth  crushed  to  earth  will  rise  again, 

The  eternal  years  of  God  are  hers, 

But  error  wounded  writhes  in  pain, 

And  dies  amid  her  worshippers. 

From  the  bleak  hills  of  the  North  and  from  the 

wide,  flower-crowned  plains  of  the  West  the  bugle 

notes  of  freedom  were  sounded.     The  champions 

of  liberty  lifted  aloud  their  clarion  voices  from  the 

41 


42  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

forum,  the  hustings  and  in  the  Senate  halls  of  the 
nation.  "In  thoughts  that  breathed  and  words 
that  burned,"  the  giants  of  freedom's  cause  uttered 
their  anathemas  against  a  system  which  had  long 
been  a  blot  on  American  civilization  and  a  reproach 
to  the  Christian  world.  In  song  and  oratory  the 
sufferings  and  pains  and  wrongs  of  slavery  were 
trumpeted  forth  to  the  world,  that  men  might  read 
and  hear  the  pitiful  story  of  the  slave,  and,  im- 
pelled by  the  power  of  human  sympathy,  rally  to 
the  deliverance  of  the  oppressed  and  down-trodden 
millions  of  the  Southern  negroes. 

The  first  guns  that  were  sounded  were  heard  on 
the  soil  of  Kansas.  John  Brown,  born  in  Connect- 
icut May  9th,  1800,  was  the  revolutionary  spirit 
that  led  the  van  of  armed  resistance  against  the 
growing  pro-slavery  spirit. 

His  four  sons,  residents  of  Ohio,  moved  to  Kan- 
sas in  1854.  They  settled  near  the  Missouri  bor- 
der in  Lykins  county.  Partaking  strongly  of  the 
anti-slavery  views  of  their  father,  they  were  in- 
sulted, threatened  and  plundered  by  lawless  bands 
of  pro-slavery  men  from  Missouri,  and,  at  length, 
they  invited  their  father  to  come  to  their  aid,  and 
to  bring  supplies  of  guns  and  ammunition.  He 
was  glad  to  obey  the  summons.  For  more  than 
fifteen  years  he  had  been  actively  planning  to 
overthrow  and  destroy  the  slave  power,  and  now 
he   deemed  the  set  time  had  come  to  begin  his 


THE  IRREPRESSIBLE  CONFLICT  A  T  HAND.      43 

work,  to  strike  the  blow  which  would  unify  the 
North  and  lead  to  a  concerted,  armed  resistance 
against  the  growing  pro-slavery  power. 

Tough  in  sinew,  athletic  in  build,  of  stern  Puri- 
tan ancestry,  deeply  religious  in  spirit,  he  was 
singularly  adapted  to  become  a  leader  and  a  martyr 
in  the  holy  cause.  In  1855,  leaving  his  family 
behind,  he  went  to  join  his  sons  in  Kansas,  pre- 
pared to  join  battle  with  the  pro-slavery  forces, 
and  if  it  were  God's  will,  to  perish  in  the  struggle. 
In  November  of  the  same  year  the  citizens  of 
Lawrence,  the  rallying  point  of  the  free-state  men, 
armed  themselves  to  repel  the  attack  of  a  large 
body  of  Missourians,  who,  organized  as  Kansas 
militia,  had  laid  siege  to  the  town.  John  Brown 
received  a  command,  took  charge  of  his  men  and 
counselled  an  immediate  movement  upon  the  Mis- 
sourians. The  leaders  of  the  free-state  men,  un- 
willing to  bring  on  a  collision,  endeavored  to  adjust 
matters  by  negotiation.  This  disgusted  Brown, 
who,  in  reply  to  an  invitation  from  Gen.  J.  H. 
Lane  to  attend  a  council  of  war,  said :  "  Tell  the 
General  when  he  wants  me  to  fight  to  say  so,  but 
that  is  the  only  order  I  will  ever  obey."  Thence- 
forth his  operations  were  of  an  irregular  character 
and  were  conducted  exclusively  by  himself.  In 
May,  1856,  at  the  head  of  a  small  body  of  deter- 
mined men,  he  went  into  camp  on  the  Potta- 
watomie, near  the  residence  of  his  sons.     A  few 


44  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

days  later  he  was  engaged  in  what  was  known  as 
the  Black  Jack  fight,  which  resulted  in  the  cap- 
ture of  a  superior  force  of  Missourians,  with  a  con- 
siderable amount  of  goods  which  had  been  plun- 
dered on  their  marauding  expedition. 

In  the  latter  part  of  August  a  fresh  force  of  Mis- 
sourians poured  into  Kansas,  numbering  nearly 
two  thousand  men.  A  part  of  this  force  was 
driven  back  by  General  Lane,  while  another  body 
of  five  hundred  marched  upon  the  town  of  Osa- 
watomie,  near  which  Brown  was  encamped  with 
about  thirty  men.  In  this  encounter  one  of  Brown's 
sons  was  killed.  Soon  after  this,  Brown,  seeing 
that  he  could  do  little  more  in  the  West  at  that 
time,  left  for  the  East. 

In  February,  1857,  he  addressed  a  committee  of 
the  Massachusetts  Legislature,  and  in  Boston  and 
other  cities  he  had  frequent  interviews  with  anti- 
slavery  sympathizers.  His  mission  proved  to  be 
an  unsuccessful  one,  so  far  as  securing  substantial 
help.  The  North  was  not  yet  ripe  for  the  com- 
mencement of  the  great  conflict.  Years  of  accu- 
mulating sentiment  were  yet  necessary  to  precipi- 
tate the  great  national  struggle,  in  which  heroes 
like  John  Brown  were  to  press  on  in  the  agitation, 
and  die  as  martyrs  to  the  cause. 

With  a  small  body  of  men  John  Brown  repaired 
to  Iowa,  where  he  passed  the  winter  of  1857-58 
in  practicing   military  exercises.     He  now  com- 


THE  IRREPRESSIBLE  CONELICT  A  T  HAND.      45 

manded  his  followers  to  go  with  him  to  Virginia, 
instead  of  Kansas,  where,  as  they  had  supposed, 
he  intended  to  commence  his  military  operations. 
Omitting  intermediate  events,  we  find  him  begin- 
ning the  Harper's  Ferry  campaign,  in  June,  1859 
The  "American  Encyclopedia"  furnishes  the  follow- 
ing account  of  that  memorable  historic  chapter  in 
the  anti-slavery  movement: 

"  In  the  latter  part  of  June,  1859,  John  Brown 
appeared  at  Hagerstown,  Md.,  where  he  repre- 
sented himself  to  be  a  farmer,  named  Smith,  from 
Western  New  York,  in  search  of  a  cheap  farm 
adapted  to  wool  growing.  He  finally  rented  for  a 
few  months  a  farm  in  Virginia,  about  six  miles  from 
Harper's  Ferry,  which  he  occupied  with  several  of 
his  party  early  in  July.  Others  joined  him  from 
time  to  time,  including  his  three  sons,  until  the 
force  numbered  twenty-two  persons,  of  whom  sev- 
enteen were  white,  and  the  remainder  negroes. 
Boxes  of  arms,  ammunition,  and  other  supplies, 
which  had  been  shipped  to  Chambersburg,  Pa., 
were  gradually  removed  to  the  farm  in  Virginia, 
without  exciting  the  suspicion  of  the  neighbors. 
In  selecting  this  place  for  the  first  attack,  he  had 
for  his  purpose  the  capture  of  the  United  States 
Arsenal  at  Harper's  Ferry,  where  were  usually 
stored  from  one  to  two  hundred  thousand  stands 
of  arms.  This  building,  with  its  contents,  once  in 
his  possession,  he  expected  to  rally  to  his  support 


46  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

the  slave  population  of  the  neighborhood.  When 
his  forces  were  sufficiently  recruited  and  equipped, 
he  proposed  to  convey  them  into  the  free  States, 
or,  if  that  should  prove  impossible,  to  retire  to  the 
mountains,  and  inaugurate  a  general  civil  war. 

"The  night  of  October  24,  1859,  was  originally 
fixed  for  the  attack  upon  the  arsenal,  but  at  a 
council  called  by  Brown  on  Sunday,  the  lGth,  it 
was  determined  to  begin  their  operations  that  very 
evening.  The  presence  of  so  large  a  body  in  the 
neighborhood,  with  no  ostensible  object,  had  begun 
to  arouse  the  suspicions  of  the  Virginians,  and 
further  delay  was  considered  dangerous.  About 
10  o'clock  on  Sunday  night,  Brown  and  his  men 
entered  the  village  of  Harper's  Ferry,  and,  having 
extinguished  the  lights  on  the  streets,  took  posses- 
sion of  the  arsenal,  overpowering  and  making  pris- 
oners of  the  watchmen,  who  formed  the  sole  guard 
of  the  building.  The  watchman  at  the  bridge 
across  the  Potomac  was  next  captured,  and  the 
railroad  train  from  the  West,  which  arrived  there 
shortly  after  1  a.m.,  on  the  17th,  was  stopped. 
During  the  night  the  houses  of  Colonel  Washing- 
ton and  other  citizens  in  the  neighborhood  were 
visited,  and  stripped  of  whatever  arms  they  con- 
tained. The  owners  were  imprisoned  in  the 
arsenal,  and  their  slaves  were  freed.  At  daylight, 
on  the  17th,  the  train  was  allowed  to  proceed 
toward  Baltimore,  Brown  freely  informing  every 


THE  IRREPRESSIBLE  CONFLICT  A  T  HAND.      47 

one  who  questioned  him  that  his  object  in  seizing 
the  arsenal  was  to  free  the  slaves,  and  that  he 
acted  by  the  authority  of  God  Almighty.  As  the 
morning  advanced,  he  gathered  in  prisoners,  prin- 
cipally from  the  male  citizens,  who  appeared  upon 
the  streets,  and  the  workmen,  as  they  approached 
the  arsenal  to  assume  their  daily  avocations.  By 
8  o'clock  the  number  exceeded  sixty.  Heywood, 
a  negro  porter  at  the  railroad  depot,  was  ordered 
by  Brown's  followers  to  join  them.  He  refused, 
and,  attempting  to  escape,  was  shot  dead. 

"  The  citizens  by  this  time  began  to  recover  from 
the  stupor  into  which  the  audacity  of  Brown's 
attack  had  plunged  them.  A  desultory  firing  was 
opened  upon  the  arsenal,  and  several  persons  were 
killed  and  wounded  upon  either  side,  including 
the  mayor  and  one  or  two  other  prominent  citi- 
zens and  one  of  Brown's  sons,  but  until  noon 
Brown  virtually  held  possession  of  the  town.  Up 
to  that  time  his  force  had  increased  only  by  the 
accession  of  six  or  eight  negroes,  who  were  com- 
pelled by  threats  to  join  him. 

"As  the  day  advanced  opposing  forces  gathered 
around  him.  The  military  from  the  neighborhood 
marched  into  the  town,  and  the  capturers  of  the 
arsenal  soon  found  themselves  closely  besieged  in 
the  building.  Of  the  two  insurgents  guarding  the 
bridge,  one  was  killed  and  the  other  was  captured. 
Five  men  who  occupied  the  rifle-works  were  driven 


48  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

out,  and  all  were  killed  or  captured.  The  arsenal 
was  now  surrounded  on  all  sides  by  armed  Vir- 
ginians, who  poured  ceaseless  volleys  upon  it, 
which  were  returned  by  Brown's  men  in  the  gar- 
rison. So  greatly  were  the  attacking  forces  in- 
censed by  the  shooting  of  the  mayor  and  other 
popular  citizens,  that  when  Aaron  D.  Stephens, 
one  of  Brown's  most  trusty  followers,  was  sent 
out  with  a  flag  of  truce,  he  was  instantly  shot 
down,  receiving  six  balls  in  his  body,  and  Thomp- 
son, the  prisoner  captured  at  the  bridge,  was  put 
to  death. 

"By  nightfall  of  the  17th  the  arsenal  was  com- 
pletely invested  by  the  military,  and  Brown  re- 
tired with  such  of  his  prisoners  as  had  not  es- 
caped to  the  engine-house,  an  attack  upon  which 
he  repulsed  with  a  loss  of  two  killed  and  six 
wounded.  Soon  after  this  the  firing  ceased  for  the 
day.  The  situation  was  then  desperate  for 
Brown.  His  forces  had  dwindled  down  to  three 
uninjured  white  men  beside  himself,  and  a  few 
negroes  from  the  neighborhood.  The  remainder 
were  killed  or  mortally  wounded  with  the  excep- 
tion of  a  half  dozen  who  had  been  sent  out  in  the 
morning  to  liberate  slaves,  and  could  not  rejoin 
their  chief.  Brown  nevertheless  displayed,  dur- 
ing the  night,  a  coolness  and  self-control  which 
extorted  the  admiration  of  his  prisoners.  "  With 
one  son  dead  by  his  side,"  says  Col.  Washington, 


THE  IRREPRESSIBLE  CONFLICT  A  T  HAND.      49 

"  and  another  shot  through,  he  felt  the  pulse  of 
his  dying  son  with  one  hand,  held  his  rifle  in  the 
other,  and  commanded  his  men  with  the  utmost 
composure,  encouraging  them  to  be  firm,  and  to 
sell  their  lives  as  dearly  as  possible.  He  offered 
to  release  his  prisoners  provided  his  men  were  per- 
mitted to  cross  the  bridge  in  safety."  This  offer 
having  been  rejected  by  the  besiegers,  the  last  ave- 
nue of  escape  was  closed  to  him.  During  the 
night  Col.  Robert  E.  Lee,  afterwards  General  Lee, 
of  Confederate  fame,  with  a  body  of  United  States 
marines  and  two  pieces  of  artillery,  arrived  and 
took  post  near  the  engine-house. 

"At  seven  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  the  18th 
these  troops  battered  in  the  door  of  the  building, 
and  in  an  instant  overpowered  the  small  garrison. 
Brown,  fighting  desperately  to  the  last,  was  struck 
down  by  a  sabre  stroke,  and  while  prostrate  on 
the  ground  was  twice  bayonetted.  Although 
grievously  wounded,  he  preserved  his  undaunted 
bearing.  When  questioned  as  to  his  object  in 
seizing  the  arsenal  and  imprisoning  citizens,  he 
answered  with  perfect  frankness,  but  refused  to 
compromise  persons  still  at  liberty.  Governor 
Wise  and  Senator  Mason,  of  Virginia,  and  Hon. 
C.  L.  Vallandigham,  of  Ohio,  cross-examined  him 
closely,  but  failed  to  elicit  any  other  than  a  sim- 
ple statement  of  his  motives  and  personal  acts. 
He  declined  to  answer  no  reasonable  question,  as- 
4 


50  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MA  A. 

serting  that  he  had  only  done  his  duty  in  attempt- 
ing to  liberate  the  slaves  of  Virginia,  and  that  he 
had  nothing  to  regret  save  the  failure  of  the 
enterprise.  He,  however,  expressed  great  solici- 
tude for  his  son  Watson,  who  was  captured  in  a 
dying  condition,  and  who  died  on  Wednesday,  the 
19th.  On  the  same  day  Brown  and  his  surviving 
comrades  were  conveyed  to  the  jail  in  Charles- 
town,  Ya.  They  were  indicted  a  few  days  later 
for  conspiring  with  negroes  to  produce  insurrec- 
tion, for  treason  against  the  commonwealth  of  Vir- 
ginia, and  for  murder. 

"On  October  27th  Brown  was  brought  to  trial. 
His  request  for  a  brief  delay  on  the  ground  that 
he  was  mentally  and  physically  unable  to  proceed 
with  his  trial,  and  that  he  wished  to  confer  with 
counsel  of  his  own  choice  instead  of  them  assigned 
to  him  by  the  court,  was  denied.  He  was  laid 
upon  a  cot  within  the  bar,  being  too  feeble  to 
stand  or  even  to  sit,  and  in  the  presence  of  a  court, 
violently  prejudiced  against  him,  conducted  him- 
self with  singular  calmness.  He  repelled  with 
indignation  the  plea  of  insanity  attempted  to  be 
urged  in  his  behalf,  and  even  offered,  in  order  to 
save  time  and  trouble,  to  identify  papers  in  his 
own  handwriting,  which  afforded  strong  evidence 
against  him.  Counsel  meanwhile  arrived  from 
the  North,  and  the  trial  went  on.  On  the  31st  he 
was  found  guilty  on  all  the  counts  in  the  indict- 


THE  IRREPRESSIBLE  CONFLICT  A  T  HAND.       51 

merits,   and  on  the  succeeding  day  lie  was  sen- 
tenced to  be  hanged  on  December  2nd. 

"  In  the  speech  which  he  addressed  to  the  court 
on  this  occasion,  he  disavowed  any  intention  of 
committing  murder  or  treason  or  the  willful  de- 
struction of  property.  His  '  prime  object/  he 
said,  '  was  to  liberate  the  slaves,  not  excite  them 
to  insurrection,  and  he  therefore  felt  no  conscious- 
ness of  guilt.'  He  laid  considerable  stress  upon 
his  kind  treatment  of  his  prisoners  in  the  arsenal, 
and  he  also  expressed  himself  satisfied  with  the 
treatment  he  had  himself  received  on  the  trial. 
During  his  imprisonment  he  received  visits  from 
his  wife  and  a  number  of  his  Northern  friends, 
and  held  arguments  on  the  slavery  question  with 
Southern  clergymen  who  attempted  to  offer  him 
the  consolations  of  religion. 

"  On  the  day  appointed  for  his  execution  he  left 
the  jail,  an  eye-witness  said,  with  a  radiant  coun- 
tenance and  the  step  of  a  conqueror,  pausing  for  a 
moment  by  the  door  to  kiss  a  negro  child,  held  up 
to  him  by  its  mother.  On  the  scaffold  he  was 
calm,  gentle  and  resigned,  and  warmly  thanked 
all  who  had  been  kind  to  him  during  his  impris- 
onment. Noticing  that  none  but  troops  were 
present  at  the  place  of  execution,  he  remarked 
that  the  citizens  should  not  have  been  denied  the 
privilege  of  coming  to  see  him  die.  He  met  his 
death  with  perfect  composure,  and  was  apparently 


52  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

the  least  concerned  of  all  present  over  the  tragic 
events  of  the  day." 

Such  is  the  brief  account  of  the  tragic  part 
which  this  patriot  and  hero  performed  in  the 
drama  which  is  now  forever  historic.  He,  per- 
haps, did  more  than  any  other  one  man  to  crys- 
tallize sentiment  and  precipitate  the  conflict  which 
at  length  resulted  in  the  freedom  of  the  negro. 
Some  have  classed  him  with  zealots  and  fanatics, 
the  victim  of  a  mad  enthusiasm.  If  this  be  so, 
Providence  has  indicated  in  a  thousand  ways  His 
need  of  men  of  such  order  of  mind  and  tempera- 
ment. With  a  love  of  liberty  which  was  unquench- 
able, and  a  courage  which  prompted  him  to  follow 
his  conviction  to  martyrdom  itself,  he  was  the  one 
man  of  America  to  light  the  first  torch  of  freedom 
which  was  at  length  to  blaze  into  the  light  of  lib- 
erty, in  the  beauty  and  splendor  of  which  the 
darkness  of  slavery  was  to  vanish  forever.  With 
the  prejudices  of  the  past  left  behind  them,  men 
of  all  sections  are  beginning  to  attribute  to  this 
long-despised  man  the  high  qualities  of  the  phi- 
lanthropist, the  hero  and  the  martyr,  and  to  give 
him  the  bright  place  in  history  his  sublime  devo- 
tion to  the  right,  as  God  gave  him  to  see  it,  entitles 
him  to  fill.  The  colored  people  of  the  South 
should  revere  his  memory  and  wreathe  it  with  the 
laurels  of  honor  and  fame. 

During  the  bloody  war  which  soon  followed  his 


m 
THE  IRREPRESSIBLE  CONFLICT  AT  HAND       53 

death,  millions  marched  to  the  music  of  his  name, 
and  wherever  the  legions  of  Grant,  and  Sherman, 
and  Sheridan  pressed  on  to  victory  might  be  heard 
the  martial  and  inspiring  strains  of  that  now 
world-famed  song, 

*  John  Brown's  body  lies  mouldering  in  the  ground, 
John  Brown's  body  lies  mouldering  in  the  ground, 
As  we  go  marching  on." 


CHAPTER  VI. 

LINCOLN  AND  OTHEK  LEADERS. 

THE  Abolition  movement  had  many  distin- 
guished leaders.  To  Garrison,  Wendell 
Phillips,  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,  Fred.  Douglas. 
and  others  must  ever  belong  the  honor  of  in- 
augurating it  at  a  time  when  there  were  but  few. 
even  in  the  North,  to  favor  it.  At  a  later  period 
in  the  agitation,  however,  many  bold  and  powerful 
champions  entered  the  lists,  and  did  national  and 
heroic  service  in  the  cause  of  freedom. 

Among  these,  Abraham  Lincoln  was  perhaps  the 
most  conspicuous.  Not  because  he  was  the  most 
ardent  and  enthusiastic,  for  there  were  thousands 
at  the  North  who  espoused  the  Abolition  move- 
ment as  heartily  as  did  he,  but  because,  by  virtue 
of  his  official  character  and  position,  he  was  the 
representative  leader  in  the  struggle. 

Lincoln  was  a  Kentuckian  by  birth,  but  emi- 
grated to  Illinois  in  1830,  when  he  was  twenty-one 
years  of  age.  It  was  a  strange,  yet  significant, 
circumstance  that  the  great  Moses  of  the  new  ex- 
odus should  have  been  born  and  reared  in  a  slave- 
holding  State.  It  took  a  man  strong  enough  to 
rise   above  the  prejudice  of  birth  and  his  earlier 

54 


LINCOLN  AND  O  THER  LEADERS.  55 

environments  to  bead  a  movement  which  de- 
manded, for  its  successful  accomplishment,  the 
sternest  and  most  heroic  qualities  of  soul. 

His  early  advantages  were  meagre  indeed,  hav- 
ing never  received  but  one  year's  schooling.  Inured 
to  a  life  of  toil  and  poverty,  he  knew  from  actual 
experience  the  sufferings  and  trials  of  the  poor. 
To  this  experience,  perhaps  more  than  to  all  else, 
may  be  attributed  those  warm  and  tender  sym- 
pathies, which  so  marked  and  beautified  his  char- 
acter, and  made  him  the  friend  of  the  down-trod- 
den and  oppressed. 

On  a  trip  to  New  Orleans  in  a  flat-boat  in  1831, 
he  saw  for  the  first  time  slaves  chained  and 
scourged,  and  from  that  moment  dates  his  life-long 
detestation  of  slavery.  In  1837,  when  he  was  a 
member  of  the  Legislature  in  Illinois,  the  Demo- 
cratic majority  passed  some  pro-slavery  resolutions, 
against  which  he,  and  a  member  named  Stone,  en- 
tered a  protest  on  the  journal  of  the  House.  Thus, 
in  the  very  outset  of  his  political  career,  he  re- 
corded his  opposition  to  slavery,  and  allied  himself 
with  the  movement,  of  which,  in  subsequent  years, 
he  was  to  become  the  loved  and  immortal  leader. 
Eleven  years  later,  in  1848,  while  a  member  of 
the  Lower  House  of  Congress,  he  voted  for  the  re- 
ception of  anti-slavery  petitions,  inquiring  into  the 
constitutionality  of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Co- 
lumbia.    On  January  16,  1849,  he  introduced  a 


56  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN 

bill  abolishing  slavery  in  the  District,  and  compen- 
sating the  slave-holders,  provided  the  majority  of 
the  citizens  should  vote  for  it.  In  his  speeches  in 
the  memorable  contest  with  Stephen  A.  Douglas, 
his  competitor  for  the  United  States  Senate  in 
1858,  he  always  stood  for  the  prohibition  of  slavery 
in  all  the  territories  of  the  United  States. 

He  was  elected  President  of  the  United  States 
in  November,  1860,  and  on  March  4,  1861,  he  en- 
tered upon  the  duties  of  that  high  and  honorable 
position.  It  is  due  to  the  truth  of  history  to  say 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  did  not,  in  the  outset  of  his  offi- 
cial career  as  the  great  head  and  leader  of  the 
Eepublican  party  at  the  North,  contemplate  the 
unconditional  emancipation  of  the  Southern 
slaves.  The  South  knowing  that  his  election  to 
the  Presidency  meant  at  least  the  prohibition  of 
slavery  in  the  territories,  for  Mr.  Lincoln  by  every 
token  had  committed  himself  against  its  extension 
beyond  its  then  recognized  bounds,  seceded  at  once 
from  the  union  of  states,  and  set  up  an  independ- 
ent government  of  its  own,  styled  the  "Confed- 
erate States."  It  was  to  preserve  the  Union  that 
the  North  appealed  to  arms.  Could  this  have 
been  done  without  the  abolition  of  slavery,  doubt- 
less slavery  would  have  yet  been  in  existence  in 
the  Southern  States,  or,  at  least,  gradual  emanci- 
pation, including  compensation  to  slaveholders, 
would  have  been  the  tardy  solution  of  the  slavery 


LINCOLN  AND  OTHER  LEADERS.  57 

question.  But  Providence  had  a  hand  in  the 
revolution  and  events,  over  which  human  agencies 
had  no  control,  rapidly  hurried  on  the  hour  when 
the  fate  of  the  Union  cause  itself  involved  the 
emancipation  of  the  negro. 

On  January  1,  1863,  nearly  two  years  after  his 
inauguration,  Mr.  Lincoln  issued  his  celebrated 
Emancipation  Proclamation.     It  was  as  follows  : 

"  Now,  therefore,  I,  Abraham  Lincoln,  President 
of  the  United  States,  by  virtue  of  the  power  in 
me  vested  as  commander-in-chief  of  the  army  and 
navy  of  the  United  States,  in  time  of  actual 
armed  rebellion  against  the  authority  and  govern- 
ment of  the  United  States,  and  as  a  fit  and  neces- 
sary war  measure  for  repressing  said  rebellion,  do 
on  this  first  day  of  January,  1863,  and  in  accord- 
ance with  my  purpose  so  to  do  publicly  proclaimed 
for  the  full  period  of  one  hundred  days  from  the 
day  of  the  above  first-mentioned  order  (alluding  to 
his  pronunciamento  of  September  1,  1862,  in  which 
he  declared  his  purpose  of  issuing  an  emancipation 
proclamation  unless  the  South  laid  down  her  arms 
and  returned  to  the  Union),  and  designates  as  the 
states  and  parts  of  states  the  following,  to  wit : 
Arkansas,  Texas,  Louisiana,  except  the  parishes  of 
St.  Bernard  and  Plaquimine,  Jefferson,  St.  Charles, 
St.  John,  St.  James,  Ascension,  Assumption,  Terra 
Bonne,  La  Fourche,  St.  Mary,  St.  Martin  and  Or- 
leans, including  the  city  of  New  Orleans,  Missis- 


58  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

sippi,  Alabama,  Florida,  Georgia,  South  Carolina, 
North  Carolina,  Virginia,  except  the  forty-eight 
counties  designated  as  West  Virginia,  and  also  the 
counties  of  Berkeley,  Accomac,  Northampton, 
Elizabeth  City,  York,  Princess  Anne  and  Norfolk, 
including  the  cities  of  Norfolk  and  Portsmouth, 
and  which  excepted  parts  are  for  the  present  left 
precisely  as  if  this  proclamation  were  not  issued, 
and  by  virtue  of  the  power  and  for  the  purpose 
aforesaid,  I  do  order  and  declare  that  all  persons 
held  as  slaves  within  such  designated  states,  on 
and  henceforward  shall  be  free,  and  that  the  ex- 
ecutive government  of  the  United  States,  including 
the  military  and  the  naval  authorities  thereof,  will 
recognize  and  maintain  the  freedom  of  said  per- 
sons. And  I  hereby  enjoin  upon  the  people  so 
declared  to  be  free,  to  abstain  from  all  violence, 
unless  in  necessary  self-defence,  and  I  recommend 
to  them  in  all  cases,  when  allowed,  they  labor 
faithfully  for  reasonable  wages;  and  I  further  de- 
clare and  make  known  that  such  persons  of  suit- 
able condition  will  be  received  into  the  armed  ser- 
vice of  the  United  States  to  garrison  forts,  posi- 
tions, stations  and  other  places,  and  to  man  vessels 
of  all  sorts  in  said  service.  And  upon  this,  sin- 
cerely believed  to  be  an  act  of  justice  warranted 
by  the  Constitution  upon  military  necessity,  I 
invoke  the  considerate  judgment  of  mankind  and 
the  gracious  favor  of  Almighty  God, 


LINCOLN  AND  OTHER  LEADERS.  59 

"  In  witness  whereof  I  have  hereto  set  my  hand 
and  caused  the  seal  of  the  United  States  to  be 
affixed." 

The  assassination  of  Lincoln  in  the  closing  hours 
of  the  war,  when  the  battle  to  which  his  wisdom 
and  patriotism  had  contributed  so  much,  was  just 
ending  in  triumph,  was  a  tragedy  full  of  the  deep- 
est pathos.  Like  Wolfe,  on  the  field  of  Quebec, 
and  Gustavus  Adolphus,  on  the  plains  of  Lutzen, 
he  died  in  the  moment  of  victory,  and  wore  upon 
his  cold,  dead  brow  the  wreath  of  a  conqueror. 
His  untimely  death  was  a  sad  blow  to  the  colored 
people  of  the  South.  His  wisdom  and  influence 
in  the  shaping  of  affairs  would,  doubtless,  have 
mitigated  to  some  extent  the  evils  of  reconstruc- 
tion days.  The  colored  people  would  have  fol- 
lowed his  leadership  with  confident  assurance  and 
even  the  white  people  of  the  South  would  have 
regarded  his  counsels  as  they  would  those  of  no 
other  Northern  leader.  Like  Moses  of  old,  how- 
ever, he  was  not  permitted  to  enter  in  and  possess 
the  Canaan  to  which  he  had  led  the  suffering  and 
defenseless  thousands  longing  for  freedom.  From 
Nebo's  summit  of  victory,  however,  he  saw  the 
beautiful  fields  of  liberty,  and  died  with  his  eyes 
fixed  on  the  flower-crowned  hills  which  stretched 
beyond.  The  tramp  of  the  millions  crossing  the 
Jordan,  whose  waves  his  magic  wand  had  parted, 
made  music  for  his  dying  spirit,  and  he  passed  up 


60  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN 

through  the  clouds  into  the  heavens  with  their 
songs  of  deliverance  falling  so  sweetly  uj}on  his 
ears  that  he  could  scarcely  distinguish  the  fare- 
well music  of  earth  from  the  welcoming  music  of 
heaven. 

Abraham  Lincoln  will  live  in  history  as  long  as 
America  is  a  republic.  With  Washington,  Jeffer- 
son and  Grant,  he  will  go  down  to  immortal  fame. 
The  colored  people  of  America  have  enshrined  his 
memory  in  their  hearts,  and  there  he  will  abide 
more  secure  than  in  the  storied  hatchments  of 
marble  or  the  towering  shafts  of  brass  or  bronze. 

Henry  Ward  Beecher,  the  prince  of  American 
pulpit  orators,  was  almost  as  conspicuous  in  the 
pulpit  and  on  the  platform  in  the  battle  against 
slavery  as  Lincoln  was  in  the  forum  and  the  cab- 
inet. With  a  splendid  presence,  a  voice  of  mar- 
vellous magic  and  compass,  and  an  eloquence 
which  moved  the  hearts  of  men  as  if  it  had  been 
the  voice  of  God  speaking  to  them,  he  stood  up  as 
the  great  moral  leader  of  the  revolution.  In  Eng- 
land as  well  as  America,  he  voiced  the  ever-grow- 
ing sentiment  of  freedom,  and  in  this  country  and 
on  foreign  shores  he  rallied  the  dallying  millions 
to  the  solid  attitude  of  decision. 

No  great  movement  was  ever  carried  to  final 
and  permanent  triumph  that  did  not  have  back  of 
it  a  great  moral  principle.  It  was  here  that  Henry 
Ward  Beecher  realized  that  the  appeal  was  to  be 


LINCOLN  AND  OTHER  LEADERS.  61 

made,  and  the  final  victory  achieved.  Beecher 
spoke  to  the  conscience  of  America  and  the  civ- 
ilized world.  Political  orators  addressed  mainly 
the  intellect,  and  discussed  the  question  of  slavery 
in  the  cold  light  of  abstract  human  rights.  They 
denounced  it  for  political  or  sectional  reasons,  ap- 
pealing often  to  the  low  motives  of  sectional  jeal- 
ousy and  state  rivalry.  Beecher  left  behind  him 
all  economic  or  sectional  questions,  and  appealed 
directly  to  the  religious  sentiment  of  the  country 
and  the  world.  Perhaps  no  speech  ever  made  such 
a  deep  and  powerful  impression  in  this  country  as 
the  one  in  which  he  sold  from  the  block  a  beauti- 
ful and  innocent  girl,  in  scenic  imitation  of  this 
legalized  custom  at  the  South. 

But  time  would  fail  me  to  mention  all  the  illus- 
trious names  which  illumine  and  glorify  the  annals 
of  those  times,  of  Sumner,  the  chaste  and  courtly 
gentleman  and  scholar ;  of  Greeley,  the  ready  and 
eloquent  writer;  of  Thaddeus  Stevens,  the  cour- 
ageous and  aggressive  commoner;  of  William 
Seward,  the  wise  and  prudent  statesman,  and 
others  who  gave  their  lives,  their  labors,  their  for- 
tunes to  this  cause.  They  are  embalmed  in  the 
grateful  memory  of  the  negro,  and  will  live  in  his- 
tory as  long  as  philanthropy  is  honored,  and  un- 
selfish devotion  to  liberty  is  admired. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  CIVIL  WAR  AND  THE  PART  THE  NEGRO 
TOOK  IN  IT. 

MANY  people  are  ignorant  of  the  part  the 
negro  took  in  the  late  Civil  War  in  which 
his  own  freedom  was  the  issue  at  stake.  The 
records,  so  far  as  we  can  secure  them,  will  be 
given  in  this  chapter.  They  show  that  he  was 
not  altogether  a  passive  looker-on,  but  that  he  did 
take  an  active  part  whenever  and  wherever  he 
was  free  to  do  so. 

Many  reasons  can  be  assigned  to  show  why  he 
could  not  as  a  race  join  the  armies  that  were  bat- 
tling for  his  freedom  and  demonstrate  that  his  con- 
duct during  that  memorable  conflict  was  not  only 
commendable,  but  in  the  highest  degree  heroic. 

If  any  are  disposed  to  charge  him  with  coward- 
ice, let  them  consider  first  his  helplessness.  He 
was  both  ignorant  and  poor.  He  had  no  arms  or 
munitions  of  war.  The  scene  of  the  actual  com- 
bat was  as  a  rule  distant  from  those  sections  in 
which  the  negro  population  was  most  dense; 
Many  of  the  most  populous  sections  were  never 
reached  by  the  Union  armies,  and  even  in  those 
sections  reached,  the  Federal  authorities  advised 

62 


THE  NEGRO'S  PART  IN  THE  CIVIL   WAR.         63 

them  against  leaving  their  helpless  wives  and  chil- 
dren, who  had  to  be  maintained  by  their  labor. 

The  Southern  slaves  were  very  ignorant.  They 
knew  nothing  of  the  use  of  arms  or  the  art  of  war. 
They  were  as  children  when  it  came  to  battle  in 
the  science  of  modern  warfare.  How  helpless  are 
that  people  who  know  nothing,  not  only  of  the 
elements  of  knowledge,  but  have  no  acquaintance 
even  with  the  geography  of  the  country  in  which 
they  live? 

The  negro  is  by  nature  docile  and  kind-spirited. 
Active  participation  on  the  part  of  the  negroes,  as 
a  whole  people,  meant  internecine  strife,  meant 
insurrection,  meant  untold  suffering  to  helpless 
women  and  children.  Such  conduct  would  not 
only  not  have  been  heroic,  but  would  have  been 
barbarous  and  cruel.  It  would  have  been  equiva- 
lent to  the  desertion  of  their  wives  and  children, 
and  to  plunging  the  country  into  a  scene  of  mas- 
sacre and  butchery  that  would  have  shamed  the 
bloody  cruelties  of  the  French  revolution. 

Again,  even  if  he  had  been  sufficiently  enlight- 
ened, and  there  had  been  no  domestic  reasons  for 
his  keeping  aloof  from  the  conflict,  the  scattered 
condition  of  the  negro  would  have  rendered  it 
impossible  for  him  to  have  engaged  in  it  as  a  race. 
The  slave  population  extended  from  Maryland  to 
Texas.  Guarded  and  watched  with  sleepless  vigi- 
lance,   there   was   no    opportunity   for   concerted 


64  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN 

action.  Any  effort  at  co-operation  could  have 
been  easily  thwarted.  It  was  simply  impossible 
to  bring  such  a  large  number  of  people  together 
under  the  circumstances  of  their  situation. 

It  is  not  a  matter  of  surprise,  then,  when  we 
consider  these  things,  that  the  negro,  as  a  race, 
made  no  concerted  effort  to  assist  in  securing  his 
own  freedom.  It  would  have  been  the  most  dis- 
astrous step  he  could  have  taken. 

Not  only  so,  but  it  will  be  to  his  everlasting 
credit  that  he  did  not — that  he  stood  still  and 
waited  for  the  "  salvation  of  God."  While  the 
flower  and  chivalry  of  the  South  were  away  from 
their  homes,  their  families  were  treated  with  kind- 
ness and  even  tenderness,  and  no  acts  of  violence 
can  be  charged  to  the  negroes  during  that  terrible 
time.  There  was  no  incendiarism,  no  murdering 
of  the  innocent,  no  deflouring  of  the  virtuous,  no 
pillage  and  plundering.  I  know  of  no  crimes  of 
rape  or  arson  or  massacre  charged  to  the  colored 
people  during  the  four  years  of  that  bloody  Civil 
War.  The  negro  had  no  disposition  to  commit 
crimes  like  these,  and  this  same  disposition 
prompted  him,  as  a  race,  to  be  quiet  while  God 
and  his  friends  fought  his  battles  for  him.  The 
Southern  white  man  who  can  charge  the  negro 
with  cowardice  because  he  chose  not  to  rise  up  as 
a  whole  race  under  all  the  circumstances  of  his 
condition  and  kill  and  slay,  is  heartless  and  un- 


THE  NEGRO'S  PART  IN  THE  CIVIL   WAR.         65 

grateful.  History  presents  no  sublimer  spectacle 
than  the  patience  and  non-resistance  of  this  race 
who,  though  smarting  under  the  wrongs  of  more 
than  two  hundred  years,  refused  to  take  revenge 
into  their  own  hands  and  rebel  with  violence  and 
bloodshed  against  their  oppressors.  No  race  ever 
acted  more  like  Jesus  Christ,  whose  life  was  one 
long,  patient  non-resistance  to  wrong. 

While  all  this  is  true,  yet  it  is  fair  to  the  colored 
race  that  they  should  have  due  credit  for  the  hon- 
orable part  they  took  in  the  Civil  War.  It  is  not 
generally  known,  though  the  record  is  open  to  the 
inspection  of  all,  that  the  negro  did  take  an  active 
and  honorable  part  in  the  war  for  his  freedom. 
"  Appleton's  American  Encyclopedia,"  page  494, 
contains  the  following: 

"  Colored  soldiers  were  first  enlisted  into  the 
Federal  service  in  January,  1863,  and  within  the 
year  their  number  reached  100,000 — about  50,000 
actually  bearing  arms.  Before  the  close  of  the 
war,  they  numbered  about  170,000.  These  were 
not  assigned  as  State  troops,  though  credited  to 
the  quotas  of  the  States  from  which  they  en- 
listed, but  mustered  in  as  United  States  Colored 
Volunteers." 

Lieutenant  Chas.  A.  Totten,  of  the  United  States 

Army,   quotes  from  the   Surgeon-General   of   the 

United  States  Army  in  1870,  to  show  that  there 

were  killed  in  battle,  and  died  by  disease  or  from 

5 


66  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

wounds,  33,380  colored  troops  during  the  war  be- 
tween the  States.  This  record  speaks  volumes  for 
the  courage  and  fidelity  of  the  colored  troops. 

This  is,  indeed,  a  creditable  showing,  and  dem- 
onstrates that  the  negro  was  not  averse  to  fighting 
for  his  own  freedom,  when  the  opportunity  was 
given  him  to  honorably  do  so.  He  was  not  will- 
ing to  butcher  and  slay,  to  be  guilty  of  murder, 
rapine  and  arson,  even  to  secure  his  own  freedom; 
but  he  was  willing  to  go  forth  as  a  soldier,  and 
fight  in  honorable,  open  warfare.  And  this  he  did 
when  he  had  the  opportunity.  As  a  soldier,  the 
record  shows  that  he  was  brave  and  chivalrous, 
and  that  he  went  gallantly  into  the  thickest  of  the 
battle  when  duty  called. 

That  the  colored  man  not  only  makes  a  good 
citizen  when  properly  educated,  but  that  he  makes 
a  good  soldier,  is  further  shown  by  the  fact  that 
the  United  States  has  in  its  service  at  the  present 
time  the  following  efficient  and  well-trained  colored 
troops : 


COLORED    REGIMENTS. 

ARM    OF   THE   SE1 

Ninth. 

Cavalry. 

Tenth. 

Cavalry. 

Twenty-fourth. 

Infantry. 

Twenty-fifth. 

Iniantry 

Three  colored  men  have  graduated  from  the 
West  Point  Military  Academy,  and  there  is  one 
colored  officer  in  the  United  States  Army,  Charles 


THE  NEGRO'S  PART  IN  THE  CIVIL   WAR.        67 

Young,  first  lieutenant.  There  are  three  colored 
chaplains  at  present  in  the  United  States  Army, 
viz. :  Allen  Allensworth,  chaplain  of  the  Twenty- 
fourth  Infantry;  Geo.  W.  Prioleau,  chaplain  of  the 
Ninth  U.  S.  Cavalry,  and  Theophilus  G.  Stewart, 
chaplain  Twenty-fifth  U.  S.  Infantry.  Each  of 
these  chaplains  have  the  rank  of  captain. 

Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  the  negro  is  coming  to 
the  front  as  a  soldier,  as  well  as  a  citizen. 

It  must  not  be  thought  that  the  colored  people, 
who  were  not  enlisted  in  the  service  during  the 
late  war,  were  passive  and  uninterested  spectators 
of  that  mighty  struggle  waged  for  their  freedom. 
They  would  have  been  less  than  human  had  they 
not  been  profoundly  interested.  Their  prayers  as- 
cended for  their  deliverance,  and  their  hearts 
yearned  for  the  success  of  their  friends.  They 
fondly  hoped  for  the  hour  of  victory,  when  the 
night  of  slavery  would  end,  and  the  day-dawn  of 
freedom  appear.  They  often  talked  to  each  other 
of  the  progress  of  the  war,  and  conferred  in  secret 
as  to  what  they  might  do  to  aid  in  the  struggle, 
but  they  always  decided  it  was  the  will  of  Provi- 
dence that  they  should  stand  still,  and  see  the 
salvation  of  God. 

That  they  were  right  in  their  attitude,  subse- 
quent events  have  abundantly  proved.  God  had 
determined  to  deliver  them  in  a  way  which  would 
exclude    all   boasting    and   self-gratulation.     The 


68  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

negro  was  to  achieve  his  freedom,  not  by  his  own 
exertion  and  strength,  but  by  the  power  of  the 
Lord  God  Almighty.  Just  as  the  Israelites  were 
liberated  by  the  special  interposition  of  Provi- 
dence, so  was  the  negro.  And  that  negro  is  in- 
deed blind  to  the  facts  of  history  and  ungrateful 
to  the  God  of  battles,  who  does  not  recognize  the 
hand  of  Jehovah  in  his  emancipation. 

I  think  it  due  to  the  people  of  the  North  to  say 
that  there  was  little  effort  on  their  part  to  stir  the 
passion  of  hatred  and  bloodshed  in  the  heart  of 
the  negro  during  the  war.  While  they  encouraged 
every  legitimate  and  honorable  effort  of  the  col- 
ored people  to  forward  the  cause  of  their  freedom, 
they  did  not  counsel  riot  and  insurrection,  and  I 
believe  it  is  true,  that  during  the  four  years  of 
that  bloody  conflict,  there  was  not  a  single  thor- 
oughly-organized and  executed  insurrectionary  up- 
rising. 

Many  liberal-hearted  Southerners  have  spoken 
eulogies  upon  the  conduct  of  the  negroes  during 
that  time.  They  have  recognized  the  fact  of  their 
splendid  behavior  to  their  defenceless  wives  and 
children,  and  given  this  sentiment  voice  in  poetry 
as  well  as  prose.  It  should  not  be  forgotten  by 
the  white  people  of  the  South,  and  they  should 
ever  remember  with  grateful  affection  the  people 
who  bore  so  patiently  their  wrongs,  and  waited  so 
unresistingly  the  result  of  that  memorable  strug- 


THE  NEGRO'S  PART  IN  THE  CIVIL  WAR.         69 

gle.  They  should  raise  their  voices  now  in  pro- 
test in  return  for  the  kindness  shown  their  wives 
and  children  in  that  perilous  time,  against  the 
heartless  mobs  that  often  take  up  innocent  negroes 
upon  mere  suspicion  or  for  some  fancied  insult, 
and  hang  them  from  the  nearest  tree. 

The  negroes,  as  a  race,  not  only  took  no  part  in 
any  insurrectionary  uprising  during  the  war,  but 
they  quietly  worked  along  in  the  fields,  raising 
food  supplies  for  the  people.  Left  almost  alone  on 
the  plantations,  they  protected  the  wives  and  chil- 
dren of  their  enslavers,  and  saw  that  they  were 
done  no  violence.  Though  the  wrongs  of  two 
hundred  years  were  fresh  in  their  memories,  they 
had  no  heart  to  avenge  them.  They  felt  kindly 
to  their  owners  in  most  instances,  and  were  willing 
to  leave  the  issue  in  the  hands  of  heaven.  They 
cared  not  to  purchase  their  freedom  by  deeds  of 
cruelty  and  wicked  violence, 

When  in  after  years  the  full  history  of  that 
great  struggle  shall  be  written  in  the  calm  and 
dispassionate  light  of  truth  and  time,  it  will  be 
the  judgment  of  mankind  that  no  grander  specta- 
cle is  presented  in  human  history  than  the  atti- 
tude of  the  colored  race  during  that  stormy 
period.  With  a  patience  that  never  wearied,  and 
a  faith  that  never  faltered,  they  awaited  the  will 
of  heaven.  Worn  with  long  bondage,  yearning 
for  the  boon  of  freedom,  longing  for  the  sun  of  lib- 


70  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

erty  to  rise,  they  kept  their  peace  and  left  the 
result  to  God. 

Here  is  a  field  for  the  epic  poet,  a  theme  for  the 
lyrist  and  the  psalmist.  No  stain  of  blood  is  on 
the  fair  escutcheon  of  the  Southern  slave.  No 
chapter,  crimsoned  with  blood  and  violence,  tells 
the  history  of  that  terrible  time.  No  property  was 
burned,  no  maidens  defloured,  no  murders  com- 
mitted. Neither  the  hope  of  liberty,  nor  the  suc- 
cesses of  the  Northern  army,  could  tempt  the 
negro  to  rapine,  arson,  or  murder.  God  be  thanked 
that  we  can  point  to  such  a  record,  and  that  we 
can  boast  such  a  history.  As  we  march  on  to 
triumph  over  ignorance,  prejudice,  oppression,  and 
sin,  we  can  ever  carry  in  our  bosoms  the  conscious- 
ness of  having  been  merciful  to  those  who  were 
our  captors,  and,  above  all,  of  having  done  our 
duty  as  God  gave  us  to  see  it. 

Let  our  brothers  in  white  remember  these  things 
in  our  favor,  and,  when  tempted  to  be  cruel  and 
harsh  with  us,  listen  to  the  whisperings  of  grati- 
tude, and  extend  to  us  that  mercy  and  love  we 
showed  to  them.  Oh  !  ye  Southern  whites  !  among 
whom  we  live,  and  with  whom  in  the  same  soil  we 
expect  to  lie  at  last,  let  your  hand  of  love  go  out 
to  your  poor,  struggling  brother  in  black,  who  has 
toiled  so  long  through  the  weary  night  of  ignor- 
ance and  servitude,  and  help  to  lift  him  to  the 
same  heights  of  knowledge  and  virtue  upon  which 
you  so  proudly  stand. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  KISE  TO  FREEDOM. 

THE  first  breath  of  liberty  to  the  colored  man 
was  like  the  intoxicating  odors  of  Eden  to 
our  first  parents.  For  two  hundred  years  he  had 
known  nothing  but  toil  and  the  self-abasement  of 
the  slave.  In  the  cotton  fields,  and  on  the  rice  plan- 
tations of  the  South,  he  had  worn  his  life  away. 
In  vain  he  looked  through  the  sorrows  of  the 
night  for  joy  to  come  in  the  morning.  Stripes 
and  the  stocks  were  familiar  to  him,  for  even  under 
the  most  humane  master  he  was  still  subject  to 
the  lash. 

But  now  the  dawn  of  a  new  day  had  come,  and 
the  light  of  liberty  was  more  welcome  to  him 
than  the  sunrise  to  the  weary  pilgrim  of  the 
night.  As  it  broke  over  the  hill-tops  of  the  South, 
its  splendid  beams  well-nigh  dazzled  his  eyes,  and 
he  could  scarcely  believe  that  the  night  was  gone, 
and  the  glorious  day  of  freedom  was  at  hand. 

I  shall  never  forget  the  moment  when  I  heard 
the  first  tidings  proclaiming  liberty  to  the  captive. 
Memory  holds  that  hour  as  the  most  beautiful  and 
enrapturing  in  all  the  history  of  a  life  which  has 
alternated  between  the  experience  of  a  debasing 

71 


72  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

servitude   and   that  of  a  joyous    and   unfettered 
freedom. 

I  was  ploughing  in  the  fields  of  Southern  Georgia. 
The  whole  universe  seemed  to  be  exulting  in  the 
unrestraint  of  the  liberty  wherewith  God  has  made 
all  things  free,  save  my  bound  and  fettered  soul, 
which  dared  not  claim  its  birthright  and  kinship 
with  God's  wide  world  of  freedom.  The  azure  of 
a  Southern  sky  bent  over  me  and  the  air  was  fra- 
grant with  the  fresh  balm-breathing  odors  of 
spring.  The  fields  and  the  forests  were  vocal 
with  the  blithe  songs  of  birds,  and  the  noise  of 
limpid  streams  made  music  as  they  leaped  along 
to  the  sea. 

Suddenly  the  news  was  announced  that  the  war 
had  ended  and  that  slavery  was  dead.  The  last 
battle  had  been  fought,  and  the  tragedy  that  closed 
at  Appomattox  had  left  the  tyrant  who  had 
reigned  for  centuries  slain  upon  the  gory  field. 

In  a  moment  the  pent-up  tears  flooded  my 
cheek  and  the  psalm  of  thanksgiving  arose  to  my 
lips.  "  I  am  free,"  I  cried,  hardly  knowing  in  the 
first  moments  of  liberty  what  and  how  great  was 
the  boon  I  had  received.  Others,  my  companions, 
toiling  by  my  side,  caught  up  the  glad  refrain,  and 
shouts  and  rejoicings  rang  through  the  fields  and 
forests  like  the  song  of  Miriam  from  the  lips  of 
the  liberated  children  of  Israel. 

Oh  !   the  rapture  of  that  hour !  the  bewildering 


THE  RISE  TO  FREEDOM.  73 

joy  of  that  happy  day !  I  would  not  say  one 
word  to  wound  my  white  brethren  in  the  South, 
with  whom  I  live  and  among  whom  I  expect  to 
die,  but  to  my  dying  day  I  can  never  forget  the 
delight  of  that,  the  first  draught  of  freedom. 

I  felt  the  chains  fall  from  my  limbs,  the  gloom 
lift  from  my  soul,  the  manacles  drop  from  my 
hands.  I  heard  the  bolts  break  and  saw  the 
prison  door  fly  open.  I  caught  the  hands  of  the 
angel  and  walked  forth  to  the  beautiful  light.  I 
gazed  upon  the  hills  of  freedom  and  breathed  the 
health- giving  air.  I  snatched  up  the  flowers 
blooming  at  my  feet,  pressed  them  to  my  heart 
and  then  kissed  their  scented  lips  in  return  for 
their  welcoming  smiles.  I  ran,  I  leaped  for  joy. 
I  saw  the  smile  of  God.  I  heard  the  anthems  of 
the  angels.  A  new  world  was  at  hand,  and  I 
walked  it,  I  imagine,  with  something  of  the  rap- 
ture with  which  the  angels  walk  the  streets  of 
gold.  Oh  !  never  till  I  enter  the  gates  of  the  city 
of  the  New  Jerusalem  and  wander  along  by  the 
river  of  life,  purling  through  the  gardens  of  God, 
can  I  be  happier  than  in  that  first  hour  of  freedom. 

I  realized  that  all  that  life  meant  was  mine  at 
last.  Before  it  had  been  one  long  nightmare,  one 
dark  journey  of  weariness  and  woe.  From  my 
prison  bars  I  had  caught  glimpses  of  the  world  of 
liberty  without,  but  now  I  could  see  it,  bathe  my 
spirit  in  its  sunshine  and  bask  in  its  unobstructed 


74  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

and  unclouded  splendor.  Surely  it  was  enough  to 
inspire  and  transport  the  heart,  and  make  it  beside 
itself  with  the  very  delirium  of  joy. 

This  picture  is  not  overdrawn.  Thousands 
whose  minds  had  not  been  wholly  benighted  by 
the  repressing  influences  of  slavery,  and  whose 
natures  still  possessed  the  capability  of  responding 
to  the  blessed  boon  of  freedom  felt  as  I  did.  I 
have  often  thought  of  the  joy  that  thrilled  the 
Greeks  when  the  victory  at  Marathon  had  deliv- 
ered them  from  the  Persian  power,  which  meant 
their  enslavement  and  ruin,  and  later,  of  their  tri- 
umph at  Salamis,  when,  for  the  second  time,  the 
same  power  strove  to  subdue  them  and  blot  Greek 
civilization  from  the  world.  I  have  often  pictured 
in  imagination  the  joy  of  the  inhabitants  of  France, 
when  Joan  of  Arc,  mounted  on  a  snow-white 
charger,  routed  the  veteran  columns  of  England 
and  led  the  trembling  king  to  his  coronation.  But 
the  rejoicings  of  these  delivered  people  were  not 
greater  than  the  exulting  happiness  of  the  four 
millions  of  Southern  slaves  in  the  first  days  and 
months  of  their  newly-acquired  freedom. 

But  as  men  get  accustomed  even  to  happiness, 
and  lose  the  intense  delight  of  joy  itself  when 
they  get  used  to  such  an  experience,  it  was  not 
long  before  the  freed  men  began  to  find  out  that 
even  freedom  was  not  an  unconditional  blessing. 
They  discovered  that  they  needed  more  than  mere 


THE  RISE  TO  FREEDOM.  75 

political  liberty,  and,  in  the  presence  of  the 
mighty  problems  that  confronted  them,  they  grew 
serious  and  thoughtful. 

They  were  poor — very  poor.  Freedom  they 
had,  and  nothing  more — nothing  but  muscle  and 
sinew,  and  faith  in  God.  Four  millions  of  people 
faced  the  struggle  for  existence  without  a  dollar. 
No  such  spectacle  has  been  witnessed  in  the  world 
since  the  children  of  Israel  crossed  the  Red  Sea, 
and  began  their  wanderings  in  the  wilderness.  No 
lands,  no  houses,  no  cattle,  no  sheep,  no  household 
goods,  not  even  clothes  and  shoes.  The  spectacle 
was  indeed  appalling,  but  not  without  the  glintings 
of  hope.  Labor  was  needed  for  Southern  planta- 
tions, and  that  this  hardy  race  could  supply.  The 
charge  of  thriftlessness  and  indolence  has  little  to 
support  it  when  we  remember  the  absolute  poverty 
of  the  negro  on  the  day  of  his  emancipation,  and 
the  immense  wealth  his  labor  has  created  for  the 
South  and  himself  since  that  day.  Mostly  by 
his  free  labor  the  cotton  production  of  the  South 
has  grown  from  3,000,000  to  9,000,000  bales.  All 
other  products  of  agriculture  in  the  Southern 
States  have  increased  in  like  ratio.  The  United 
States  government  has  contributed  but  little  to  his 
physical  wants,  and,  practically  unaided,  he  has 
had  to  rely  upon  his  own  brawny  arm  for  the 
means  of  subsistence.  This  was  no  small  matter, 
and  to  meet  all  the  demands  upon  him,  he  has  had 


76  THE  NEGRO  AND   THE   WHITE  MAN. 

to  give  to  it  the  best  thought  of  his  brain  and  the 
best  work  of  his  hands. 

Another  subject  presented  itself  to  the  negro 
mind,  after  the  first  joys  of  freedom  had  exjDended 
themselves.  It  was  the  question  of  his  education. 
No  race  ever  came  suddenly  into  the  acquisition  of 
freedom  so  thoroughly  ignorant.  It  was  the  de- 
sign of  slavery  to  keep  the  slave  in  ignorance. 
The  perpetuity  of  the  system  demanded  it.  Hence, 
when  he  was  freed  he  could  neither  read  nor  write. 
He  knew  nothing  of  how  to  get  along  in  the  world 
of  trade,  and  had  no  knowledge  of  the  ordinary 
occupations  and  vocations  of  life.  He  was  an  easy 
prey  to  the  designing  and  conscienceless  employer, 
if  he  wished  to  rob  him  of  the  products  of  his 
labor.  He  knew  but  little  of  the  amenities  of  life, 
having  been  accustomed  to  nothing  but  the  primi- 
tive society  common  to  the  backwoods  and  remote 
sections  of  the  South,  and  having  been  always 
treated  as  a  menial,  and  not  as  a  freeman  and  a 
citizen.  He  knew  but  little  of  law  and  govern- 
ment, and  was  easily  duped  by  the  designing  poli- 
tician, who  used  him  wherever  he  could  to  further 
his  own  petty  and  ignoble  ambitions.  What  a 
burden  for  a  people  to  carry  ?  How  it  hinders  in 
the  race  for  progress  !  As  to  what  the  negro  has 
accomplished  within  the  last  thirty  years  towards 
removing  this  burden  from  his  race,  we  will  at- 
tempt to  show  in  another  chapter. 


THE  RISE  TO  FREEDOM,  77 

Another  embarrassing  question  presented  itself 
to  the  negro  upon  his  emancipation,  and  that  was 
his  peculiar  relation  to  the  whites.  His  former 
relation  was  at  an  end.  His  new  relation  was  full 
of  perplexing  and  dangerous  problems,  some  of 
which  are  unsolved  to  this  hour.  On  the  one  side 
there  was  disdain  and  proud  contempt,  on  the 
other  there  was  suspicion  and  distrust.  I  do  not 
allude  to  these  things  in  the  spirit  of  criticism  and 
complaint  now.  Perhaps  this  state  of  things  was 
natural  and  inevitable.  History  has  no  parallel 
to  the  situation  of  the  two  races  in  the  South  im- 
mediately after  the  war.  Four  millions  of  slaves, 
representing  millions  and  billions  of  dollars,  had 
been  freed,  after  one  of  the  bloodiest  wars  that 
history  records.  Stripped  of  all  side-issues,  this 
had  been  the  casus  belli,  and  the  war  was  fought 
through  on  the  question  of  slavery.  The  South 
had  just  lost,  and  her  people  were  exhausted  and 
impoverished.  For  this  result  the  negro  had  to 
bear  the  brunt  of  the  South's  discontent  and  dis- 
appointment. Her  people  could  ill-brook  the 
slightest  evidence  of  self-assertion  and  independ- 
ence of  spirit  on  the  part  of  the  colored  people. 
They  must  still  wear  the  aspect  and  demean  them- 
selves after  the  manner  of  slaves.  They  must 
never  meet  the  white  man  on  terms  of  equality, 
but  must  yield  to  him  the  most  abject  homage  and 
deference.     This,  too,  I  am  free  to  admit  was  but 


78  THE  NEGRO  AND   THE  WHITE  MAN. 

a  natural  result  of  the  passing  away  of  the  insti- 
tution of  slavery. 

Nevertheless  it  was  a  serious  menace  to  the 
peace  and  safety  of  the  negro.  Collisions  arose, 
lawless  bands  and  midnight  marauders  were  organ- 
ized, and  the  Ku  Klux  Clan  became  a  terror  to  the 
defenceless  negroes,  who  dreaded  their  approach 
under  the  cover  of  night,  as  did  the  Saxons  of  old 
the  incursions  of  the  Danes.  In  many  instances, 
their  humble  homes  were  invaded  by  these  lawless 
bands,  and  colored  men  were  shot  to  death,  or,  if 
their  lives  were  spared,  they  were  cruelly  beaten. 
It  is  not  pleasant  to  recall  these  bloody  and  cruel 
scenes,  and  I  am  just  enough  to  say  that  such  out- 
rages never  received  the  sanction  of  the  best  class 
of  Southern  whites.  I  allude  to  these  things  to 
show  the  peculiar  situation  of  the  colored  people 
of  the  South  immediately  after  the  advent  of  free- 
dom, and  in  what  embarrassing  circumstances  they 
were  placed  to  work  out  their  destiny. 

This  condition  of  things  forced  upon  his  atten- 
tion the  consideration  of  another  question,  and 
that  was  the  one  of  habitation.  Must  he  remain 
and  suffer  these  indignities  and  cruelties,  or  must 
he  leave  and  find  some  country  where  these  race 
troubles  would  not  perplex  and  annoy  him  so? 
Many  and  various  schemes  were  presented  to  him. 
At  first  the  negro  took  kindly  to  them  all,  and 
great  excitement  was  aroused  on  the  question  of^ 


THE  RISE  TO  FREEDOM.  79 

removal  to  distant  states  and  countries.  Many 
ship-loads  left  for  Africa,  and  hundreds  braved  the 
dangers  of  a  bitter  climate  and  turned  their  faces 
toward  the  North  and  West.  These  schemes  of 
emigration  were  at  length  found  to  be,  for  the  most 
part,  impracticable  and  ill-advised.  After  many 
unsuccessful  attempts  to  leave  his  Southern  habi- 
tat, and  after  the  expenditure  of  a  vast  amount  of 
unnecessary  talk  and  enthusiasm,  the  negro,  as  a 
race,  reached  the  conclusion  to  remain  where  he 
was.  That  he  acted  wisely  in  this  decision,  I  will 
attempt  to  show  in  another  chapter. 

Finally,  in  this  connection,  the  thoughtful  and 
observing  negroes  soon  discovered  that  the  moral 
condition  of  their  race  was  lamentably  inadequate 
to  meet  the  requirements  of  their  new  responsi- 
bilities. Under  the  repressing  influences  of 
slavery  it  was  impossible  to  educate  the  negro  to 
a  high  sense  of  religious  and  moral  obligation.  No 
people  are  prepared  for  freedom  who  are  not  en- 
lightened as  to  the  great  principles  of  morality 
and  religion.  Nations  fall  for  lack  of  these  per- 
petuating and  vitalizing  forces.  They  rise  in 
power  and  glory  in  the  same  scale  as  they  rise  in 
virtue,  morality  and  Christianity.  The  joy  of 
freedom  was  discounted  in  the  minds  of  those  who 
were  intelligent  enough  to  know  the  meaning  of 
such  a  lack,  when  they  beheld  the  moral  status  of 
their  race.    Here  was  a  serious  problem.     To  have 


80  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN 

self-respect,  to  have  the  consideration  of  the  world, 
they  knew  that  their  people  must  be  taught  to 
regard  virtue,  honesty  and  integrity  of  character. 
Their  wives,  and  sisters,  and  daughters,  must  have 
instilled  into  their  minds  and  hearts  the  refining 
influences  of  Christian  principles,  so  that  they 
would  rightly  estimate  the  value  of  purity  of  life 
and  character. 

To  this  work  the  better  class  of  the  race  ad- 
dressed themselves.  From  the  pulpit  and  the 
school-house  the  beauty  of  modesty  and  the  sanc- 
tity of  the  marriage  relation  were  insisted  upon. 
That  there  has  been  improvement  none  will  deny, 
as  flagrant  as  is  this  vice  of  social  impurity  still. 
Yet  in  those  families  and  communities  where  there 
has  been  protection  afforded  and  religious  truth 
inculcated,  the  colored  women  of  the  South  are  as 
pure  as  any  in  the  world.  In  the  absence  of  this 
instruction  and  protection,  the  opposite  is  true,  not 
only  among  the  colored  people,  but  among  all 
people. 

These  were  some  of  the  problems  that  made  the 
wise  negro  tremble  with  apprehension  after  the 
first  delight  and  joy  of  freedom  had  been  experi- 
enced. No  race  was  ever  so  suddenly  thrown 
amid  such  difficult  and  perplexing  circumstances. 
Nothing  but  the  divine  leading  could  have  helped 
them  even  to  a  partial  solution  of  the  puzzling 
questions. 


THE  RISE  TO  FREEDOM.  81 

Thirty-two  years  of  freedom  tells  a  story  of 
progress  and  improvement,  I  believe,  unparalleled 
in  the  history  of  the  world.  I  know  that  the  dis- 
tance between  my  race  and  an  ideal  civilization  is 
still  almost  infinite.  I  know,  too,  that  we  have 
had  the  advantage  of  contact  with  Anglo-Saxon 
civilization.  Still  I  believe  that  the  advance  the 
colored  people  of  the  South  have  made,  counting 
both  the  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  the 
case,  since  they  were  free,  is  the  most  marked  and 
rapid  in  the  annals  of  the  human  race. 
6 


CHAPTER   IX. 

THE  KISE  TO   CITIZENSHIP. 

THE  slave  was  not  a  citizen.  He  could  claim 
under  the  law  no  right  but  the  right  to  live. 
He  was  in  the  category  of  goods  and  chattels. 
Under  the  evils  incident  to  his  condition  it  was 
almost  impossible  to  secure  him  even  in  the  right 
of  life.  Many  masters  were  humane  and  their 
pecuniary  interest  in  the  slave  prompted  them  to 
protect,  as  far  as  they  could,  the  life  of  the  slave, 
but  even  with  the  promptings  of  humanity  and 
the  motives  of  self-interest,  the  humane  master 
could  not  always  see  to  the  protection  of  the  lives 
of  his  slaves.  Irresponsible  and  cruel  overseers, 
far  from  the  eye  of  the  owner,  sometimes  exer- 
cised the  most  brutal  treatment  toward  the  defense- 
less negroes  far  away  on  the  plantations.  How 
many  lost  their  lives  sooner  or  later  as  the  result 
of  such  treatment  the  records  of  the  last  day  will 
alone  disclose. 

But  now  the  dark  night,  so  full  of  suffering  and 
unrequited  toil,  was  gone  forever.  The  blood  of 
thousands  shed  on  the  battle  fields,  which  are  now 
historic,  had  bought  the  negro's  freedom.  As 
much  as  the  Southern  whites  resisted  his  further 

82 


THE  RISE  TO  CITIZENSHIP.  83 

advancement,  it  was  impossible  to  resist  the  tide 
of  sentiment  at  the  North,  which  now  demanded 
that  the  negro  be  clotfied  with  the  full  rights 
and  immunities  of  citizenship.  The  Thirteenth 
Amendment  to  the  Constitution  passed  Congress 
and  was  ratified  by  two-thirds  of  the  States  of  the 
Union  in  1865.  This  amendment  simply  abol- 
ished slavery  in  the  United  States.  It  was  couched 
in  the  following  language  : 

"  Neither  slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude,  ex- 
cept as  a  punishment  for  crime  whereof  the  party 
shall  have  been  duly  convicted,  shall  exist  within 
the  United  States  or  any  place  subject  to  their 
jurisdiction." 

Three  years  later  the  Fourteenth  Amendment 
was  passed  by  Congress,  and  was  ratified  by  the 
States.  Many  of  the  prominent  men  of  the  South, 
as  we  have  already  stated,  advised  acceptance  of 
the  situation  and  quiet  submission  to  the  results  of 
the  war.  These  far-sighted  men  saw  that  it  was 
useless  to  fight  the  inevitable.  For  this  they  were 
socially  ostracised,  and  even  execrated  by  the 
white  masses  of  the  South.  Hon.  Benjamin  H. 
Hill,  to  whom  I  have  already  alluded  as  the  lead- 
ing orator  of  the  South,  advocated  the  social  os- 
tracism of  white  Republicans,  and  in  his  cele- 
brated "  Notes  on  the  Situation,"  hurled  red-hot 
anathemas  upon  the  heads  of  all  who  dared  to 
advocate  submission  to  reconstruction. 


84  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

Notwithstanding,  however,  the  Fourteenth 
Amendment  became  the  law  of  this  country  in 
1868.     We  give  its  text: 

"All  persons  born  or  naturalized  in  the  United 
States  and  subject  to  the  jurisdiction  thereof,  are 
citizens  of  the  United  States,  and  of  the  State 
wherein  they  reside.  No  State  shall  make  or  en- 
force any  law  which  shall  abridge  the  privileges  or 
immunities  of  citizens  of  the  United  States;  nor 
shall  any  State  deprive  any  person  of  life,  liberty 
or  property  without  due  process  of  law,  nor  deny 
to  any  person  within  its  jurisdiction  the  equal  pro- 
tection of  the  law.  Representatives  shall  be  ap- 
portioned among  the  several  States  according 
to  their  respective  numbers,  counting  the  whole 
number  of  persons  in  each  state,  excluding  In- 
dians not  taxed,  but  when  the  right  to  vote  at  any 
election  for  the  choice  of  electors  for  President 
and  Vice-President  of  the  United  States,  repre- 
sentatives in  Congress,  the  executive  and  judicial 
officers  of  a  State,  or  the  members  of  the  Legisla- 
ture thereof,  is  denied  to  any  of  the  male  inhab- 
itants of  such  State  being  twenty-one  years  of  age 
and  citizens  of  the  United  States  are,  in  any  way 
abridged,  except  for  participation  in  rebellion  or 
other  crimes,  the  basis  of  representation  therein 
shall  be  reduced  in  the  proportion  which  the  num- 
ber of  such  male  citizens  shall  bear  to  the  whole 
number  of  male  citizens  in  such  State.    No  person 


THE  RISE  TO  CITIZENSHIP.  85 

shall  be  a  senator  or  representative  in  Congress  or 
elector  for  President  and  Vice-President,  or  hold 
any  office  civil  or  military  under  the  United  States 
or  under  any  State  who,  having  previously  taken 
an  oath  as  a  member  of  Congress  or  as  an  officer 
of  the  United  States,  shall  have  engaged  in  insur- 
rection or  rebellion  against  the  same,  or  given  aid 
or  comfort  to  the  enemies  thereof.  But  Congress 
may  by  a  vote  of  two-thirds  of  each  house  remove 
such  disability.  The  validity  of  the  public  debt 
of  the  United  States  authorized  by  law,  including 
debts  incurred  for  payment  of  pensions  and  boun- 
ties for  services  in  suppressing  insurrection  or 
rebellion,  shall  not  be  questioned.  But  neither 
the  United  States  nor  any  State  shall  assume  or 
pay  any  debt  or  obligation  incurred  in  aid  of  in- 
surrection or  rebellion  against  the  United  States, 
or  any  claim  for  the  loss  or  the  emancipation  of 
any  slave;  but  all  such  debts,  obligations  and 
claims  shall  be  held  illegal  and  void.  The  Con- 
gress shall  have  power  to  enforce  by  appropriate 
legislation  the  provisions  of  this  article." 

This  amendment,  as  may  be  noticed,  disfran- 
chised nearly  if  not  quite  all  the  leaders  of  the 
South,  and  barred  their  way  to  office  in  state  or 
Federal  positions  But  it  did  not  guarantee 
suffrage  to  the  colored  population.  It  did  affix  a 
penalty  for  the  denial  of  this  right  to  them,  but  in 
many  instances  the   South   accepted  the  penalty, 


86  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

and  rather  than  give  the  negro  the  privilege  of 
suffrage,  went  to  the  extreme  of  surrendering  their 
representation  in  Congress. 

It  was  found  necessary,  therefore,  to  add  still 
another  amendment  to  the  Constitution,  which 
would  declare  the  unconditional  right  of  the  negro 
to  cast  his  ballot  as  any  other  American  citizen. 
This  is  the  celebrated  Fifteenth  Amendment, 
which  was  ratified  by  a  majority  of  the  States  of 
the  Union  in  1870,  and  thus  became  a  part  of  the 
constitutional  law  of  this  country.  It  is  as  fol- 
lows : 

"  The  right  of  the  citizens  of  the  United  States 
to  vote  shall  not  be  denied  or  abridged  by  the 
United  States  or  by  any  State  on  account  of  race, 
color  or  previous  condition  of  servitude." 

There  could  be  no  evasion  or  misinterpretation 
of  the  plain,  but  brief,  declaration  of  the  right  of 
suffrage  contained  in  this  Fifteenth  Amendment. 
And  now  the  colored  race,  vested  with  the  unre- 
stricted franchise,  could,  so  far  as  the  law  was  con- 
cerned, exercise  the  full  and  complete  offices  and 
privileges  of  citizenship. 

I  am  free  to  admit  that  this  Fifteenth  Amend- 
ment was  a  radical  measure,  and  attended  at  first 
with  friction  and  danger,  but  what  else  could  have 
been  done?  To  have  delayed  the  elective  fran- 
chise would  have  been,  perhaps,  to  defeat  it  for  all 
time,  and  while  the  negro  was  not  educated  to  the 


THE  RISE  TO  CITIZENSHIP.  87 

proper  use  of  the  ballot,  it  was  better  for  him  to 
use  it  even  unwisely  for  awhile  than  never  to  have 
had  it  at  all.  I  say  that  delay  in  conferring  the 
elective  franchise  upon  the  negro  would,  in  all 
probability,  have  been  fatal  to  his  hopes  of  citizen- 
ship, because  I  know  the  persistence  and  strength 
of  race  prejudice.  Nothing  but  the  ardor  of  patri- 
otism kindled  upon  the  altars  of  a  bloody  revolu- 
tion, would  have  sufficed  to  have  broken  the 
shackles  of  this  prejudice  and  set  the  negro  free. 
The  same  spirit  was  yet  alive  when  in  1870  Con- 
gress conferred  upon  the  colored  people  of  this 
country  the  full  rights  of  American  citizenship. 

No  one  can  deplore  more  than  myself  the  mis- 
use the  colored  man  has  often  made  and  now 
sometimes  makes  of  his  ballot.  Yet  with  all  the 
abuse  the  colored  man,  and  as  to  that,  the  pur- 
chasable white  voters  of  this  country,  have  made 
of  this  inestimable  right  of  citizenship,  I  believe  it 
would  be  a  blow  at  the  very  foundations  of  Amer- 
ican institutions  to  limit  or  in  any  way  abridge 
that  right.  Education,  when  it  has  done  its  per- 
fect work,  will  teach  the  colored  man  that  his 
franchise  is  sacred,  and  that  to  prostitute  or  mis- 
use it  is  one  of  the  greatest  crimes  he  can  commit 
against  God  and  his  fellow-man.  The  white  men 
of  this  country  need  to  learn  with  their  colored 
neighbors  this  same  lesson.  Example  is  contagious, 
and  the  negro  is  quick  to  imitate  not  only  the 


88  THE  NEGRO  AND   THE  WHITE  MAN. 

good,  but  the  evil  of  his  white  brother.  There  is 
no  greater  menace  to  free  government  than  cor- 
ruption in  the  use  of  the  ballot,  and  all  good  men 
should  unite  to  condemn  and  extirpate  this  great 
and  growing  shame  by  whomsoever  practiced. 

Heretofore  political  alignments  in  the  South 
have  been  determined  by  the  race  question.  The 
white  people,  as  a  rule,  have  voted  with  a  party, 
who,  whether  it  be  true  or  not,  the  negroes  believe 
is  hostile  to  their  interests  and  from  which  they 
have  thought  they  had  little  to  hope.  This  atti- 
tude of  the  parties  has  tended  to  keep  alive  race 
antagonisms  and  widen  the  gulf  between  them. 
But  the  dawn  of  a  new  era  is  at  hand.  The 
march  of  events  has  begun  to  invade  the  old  align- 
ments and  Southern  men  are  beginning  to  array 
themselves  as  interest  and  not  prejudice  dictates. 
This  fact  is  full  of  promise  to  the  negro  and  lends 
hope  to  his  political  future.  It  augurs  well  for 
the  white  man  too.  He  will  begin  to  feel  more 
kindness  to  his  colored  brother  when  he  finds  him 
in  the  same  political  affiliations  with  himself,  and 
instead  of  trying  to  defeat  his  ballot  he  will  use 
every  effort  to  make  it  effective. 

As  to  State  politics  the  colored  man  has  long 
since  decided  to  use  his  best  judgment  and  vote 
for  the  best  man  irrespective  of  party.  He  recog- 
nizes the  fact  that  his  white  neighbor  owns  most 
of  the  property,  and  therefore  must  be  vitally  con- 


THE  RISE  TO  CITIZENSHIP.  89 

cerned  for  good  State  and  municipal  government. 
As  a  rule  the  negro  does  not  hesitate  to  vote  for 
honest  democrats  in  these  local  elections.  This 
policy  on  the  part  of  the  negro  has  softened  to 
some  extent  the  extreme  bitterness  of  the  past 
and  makes  effective  his  ballot  on  all  local  issues. 

When  party  prejudices  shall  be  thoroughly  set 
aside,  and  men  in  the  South  shall  feel  free  from 
the  party  lash,  as  they  now  seem  likely  to  do,  a 
great  stride  will  have  been  made  toward  harmony 
between  the  races.  I  have  already  alluded  to  the 
fact  that  many  white  people  in  the  South  are  going 
over  to  the  Republican  party,  and  that  Maj. 
McKinley,  in  the  recent  Presidential  election,  re- 
ceived thousands  of  former  democratic  votes. 
Maj.  Hanson,  a  wealthy  and  intelligent  manufac- 
turer of  Macon,  Ga.,  whose  social  and  moral  stand- 
ing is  as  good  as  that  of  any  man  in  the  South, 
has  recently  united  with  the  Republican  party. 
This  step  has  given  Maj.  Hanson  national  promi- 
nence, and  is  notable  as  an  indication  of  the  disin- 
tegration of  the  Democratic  party  in  the  South. 
Hundreds  of  prominent  and  substantial  men  will 
follow  his  example,  aye,  have  already  done  so. 
This  change  of  front  on  the  part  of  leading  citi- 
zens in  the  South  will  continue  to  have  a  potent 
influence  until  the  white  people  of  the  South  will 
be  divided  just  as  are  the  white  people  of  the 
North   and    West.     Ward  politicians  may   differ 


90  THE  NEGRO  AND   THE  WHITE  MAN. 

with  me  on  this  subject.  It  is  natural  for  them  to 
do  so,  as  they  make  their  living  out  of  politics  and 
are  anxious  to  keep  alive  strife  and  party  bicker- 
ings, but  statesmen  and  philanthropists  will  view 
it  as  one  of  the  hopeful  signs  of  the  times.  Hon. 
Alexander  II.  Stephens,  while  a  candidate  for  Gov- 
ernor of  the  State  of  Georgia,  said  to  me  :  "  I 
counsel  you  not  to  make  too  sharply  the  color  line, 
for  whenever  it  is  distinctly  made  the  whites,  both 
North  and  South,  will  unite  and  the  negro  will  be 
pushed  to  the  wall." 

The  negro  then  has  a  vital  interest  in  the  politi- 
cal division  of  the  whites.  When  this  is  accom- 
plished mere  race  issues  will  be  left  in  the  back- 
ground, and  the  great  questions  which  are  pressing 
for  solution  upon  us  as  a  whole  people  will  be  the 
issues  upon  which  the  great  political  parties  of  the 
country  will  divide,  and  about  which  they  will 
contend. 


CHAPTER  X. 

RECONSTRUCTION  AND  SUFFRAGE. 

IT  was  natural  that  the  Southern  whites  should 
have  resisted  reconstruction  which  involved 
negro  citizenship  and  suffrage.  They,  like  the 
Normans,  were  a  haughty,  hot-blooded  race.  Hav- 
ing held  the  negro  so  long  in  subjection,  they  could 
not  brook  the  thought  of  his  elevation  to  a  posi- 
tion of  equality  before  the  law  with  them.  It  was 
indeed  a  severe  blow  to  the  gentry  of  the  South, 
when  the  millions  they  had  invested  in  slaves 
were  swept  away  almost  in  a  moment,  and  the  for- 
tunes of  years  scattered  like  leaves  before  the 
breath  of  the  wind.  I  am  just  enough  to  say, 
that  had  I  been  a  slaveholder,  I  would  have  felt 
the  same  chagrin  and  disappointment  at  the  results 
of  the  war. 

But  in  addition  to  the  loss  of  his  slaves,  the 
slaveholder  was  now  to  witness  the  spectacle  of 
those  slaves  elevated  to  citizenship  and  dignified 
with  the  ballot.  This  was  indeed  a  bitter  pill,  and 
it  was  but  natural  that  the  Southern  people  should 
have  been  loth  to  take  it.  I  for  one  was  not  sur- 
prised at  the  opposition  of  Southern  whites  to  the 
reconstruction  measures. 

91 


92  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

Led  on  by  such  distinguished  orators  as  Benja- 
min II.  Hill,  of  Georgia,  Zebulon  Vance,  of  North 
Carolina,  and  other  leading  men,  the  South  re- 
sisted the  adoption  of  the  Fourteenth  and  Fif- 
teenth Amendments  to  the  Constitution  with  un- 
compromising animosity. 

A  few  far-sighted  statesmen  of  that  section,  such 
as  Governor  Joseph  E.  Brown,  Senator  Joshua 
Hill  and  Provisional  Governor  James  Johnson,  of 
Georgia,  Ex-Governor  James  L.  Orr,  of  South 
Carolina,  and  Horace  Maynard,  of  Tennessee, 
advised  the  immediate  acceptance  of  the  situation, 
and  had  their  counsels  been  followed,  many  of  the 
evils  of  that  period  would  have  been  averted. 

It  would  be  a  thankless  task  to  recount  the 
dark  days  of  bitterness  and  strife  which  make  up 
what  is  called  the  reconstruction  era.  Feelings 
were  engendered  and  prejudices  created  which 
have  not  passed  away  to  this  hour,  and  the  colored 
man  will  Ion":  look  back  to  that  time  as  the  dark- 
est  which  marks  the  pages  of  his  history  since  the 
dawn  of  his  freedom. 

The  situation,  however,  was  at  length  accepted. 
Even  those  who  were  at  first  the  most  hostile  to 
reconstruction,  became  its  warmest  advocates.  The 
Hon.  Benjamin  H.  Hill,  in  1870,  wrote  a  letter  to 
the  people  of  Georgia,  in  which  he  said:  "Recon- 
struction is  an  accomplished  fact,  and  now  that  it 
is,  let  us  accept  it  gracefully." 


RECONSTRUCTION  AND  SUFFRAGE.  93 

Several  reasons  influenced  the  South  to  accept 
Mr.  Hill's  advice,  and  to  fall  in  line  with  the 
march  of  events. 

First,  the  hopelessness  of  resistance.  Negro 
citizenship  and  suffrage  were  but  phases  of  his 
freedom,  and  this  question,  having  been  submitted 
to  the  arbitrament  of  the  sword,  was  decided 
against  the  South.  The  South  soon  came  to  see 
that  further  resistance  was  not  only  futile,  but 
kept  alive  a  spirit  of  strife  of  which  she  was 
weary.  When  a  question  is  settled  right,  resist- 
ance may  be  continued  for  a  season,  but  will  cease 
at  length  as  reason  and  the  sense  of  right  come 
into  play.  When  a  question  is  settled  wrong,  re- 
sistance never  ceases,  and  the  verdict  is  eventually 
reversed  and  the  question  settled  right.  The 
South  realized  that  it  was  but  just  that  the  negro 
should  have  his  rights  before  the  law  as  an  Ameri- 
can citizen,  and  the  sentiment  was  so  strong  at 
last  that  resistance  to  it  was  hopeless. 

Second,  the  South  soon  caught  on  to  the  advan- 
tage she  would  receive  from  accepting  the  Four- 
teenth and  Fifteenth  Amendments  in  national  po- 
litical affairs.  Increased  representation  by  reason 
of  increased  voting  population,  meant  wider  and 
more  commanding  influence  for  the  South  in  the 
halls  of  Congress.  The  South  realized  suddenly, 
it  seemed,  that  the  negro  constituted  nearly  one- 
half  of  her  population,  and  that  his  legalized  suf- 


94  THE  NEGRO  AND   THE   WHITE  MAN. 

frage  would  almost  double  the  number  of  her  con- 
gressmen. This  dream  of  power  threw  a  quietus 
upon  the  opposition  to  reconstruction,  and  changed 
the  attitude  of  the  South  from  virulent  antagonism 
into  that  of  active,  earnest  championship  of  the 
measures  of  reconstruction.  The  Southern  whites 
even  took  to  a  spirit  of  rejoicing  over  their  good 
fortune,  as  they  found  that  they  could  turn  negro 
suffrage  into  a  sort  of  boomerang  and  use  it  as  a 
weapon  upon  those  she  deemed  her  political  ene- 
mies at  the  North.  This,  indeed,  acted  as  a  pow- 
erful opiate  on  the  spirit  of  resistance  to  recon- 
struction and  led  the  South  at  length  to  become 
heartily  in  favor  of  it. 

Third,  especially  did  the  Southern  white  people 
gladly  accept  reconstruction  when  it  was  discov- 
ered that  by  intimidation  and  fraud  the  negro's 
vote  could  be  effectually  disposed  of.  With  the 
machinery  of  the  State  governments  in  their  hands, 
it  was  easy  to  manipulate  the  ballot-box  and  either 
count  it  out  or  count  it  in  to  swell  democratic 
majorities.  Ballot-box  stuffing  for  the  first  time 
came  into  vogue,  and  elections  in  the  South  were 
converted  into  the  merest  farces.  The  farce  at 
length  became  so  transparent  and  ill-disguised  that 
the  most  ignorant  saw  through  it,  and  the  result 
was  that  the  colored  people  soon  ceased  to  vote  at 
all.  It  is  not  surprising  that  the  South,  under 
these  circumstances,  came   to  actively  champion 


RECONSTRUCTION  AND  SUFFRAGE.  95 

reconstruction.  So  great  a  change  in  popular  sen- 
timent was  rarely  ever  wrought  in  so  short  a  time. 
Certainly  there  was  a  powerful  reason  for  so  radical 
a  change  of  view,  and  that  reason  was  an  increase 
of  representation  in  the  legislative  halls  of  the 
nation,  based  upon  a  constituency  which  could 
have  no  voice  in  the  choice  of  that  representation. 

The  Republican  party  at  the  North  has  recog- 
nized the  status  of  the  suffrage  question  as  it  re- 
lates to  the  negro  at  the  South,  but  so  far  have 
been  powerless  to  remedy  it.  Hon.  James  G. 
Blaine,  in  his  address  to  the  American  people  in 
1884,  attributed  his  defeat  for  the  Presidency  to 
the  practical  disfranchisement  of  the  negro.  He 
warned  the  North  and  the  South  of  the  dangers 
attending  such  political  dishonesty  and  called  upon 
good  people,  irrespective  of  sections,  to  unite 
against  such  methods. 

It  must  be  admitted  by  all  fair-minded  men, 
that  such  wholesale  disfranchisement  of  a  people, 
by  illegal  and  high-handed  means,  is  fraught  with 
no  good  to  either  race.  It  is  a  standing  menace  to 
the  integrity  of  free  government,  of  which  an  un- 
trammelled ballot  is  the  corner-stone.  It  will  edu- 
cate the  people  in  the  processes  of  fraud  and  law- 
lessness, which  will  eventually  rebound  and  react 
to  the  injury  of  the  men  and  the  parties  who 
practice  such  methods. 

I  know  that  Southern  whites  have  justified  this 


96  THE  NEGRO  AND   THE  WHITE  MAN. 

treatment  of  the  negro,  upon  the  ground  that  his 
vote  is  aimed  at  the  best  interests  of  the  South, 
as  they  claim.  They  say  the  end  justifies  the 
means,  and  rather  than  submit  to  the  influence  of 
the  negro  in  our  political  affairs,  we  will  count  out 
his  vote  altogether. 

In  reply  to  this  specious  argument,  I  will  say 
that  such  reasoning  would  exclude  from  participa- 
tion in  the  government  and  its  affairs,  not  only 
every  negro,  but  every  Republican.  Whenever 
and  wherever  the  negro  votes  with  the  Democratic 
party,  his  ballot  has  the  right  of  way,  and  will  be 
counted.  But  if  he  prefers  to  vote  the  Republi- 
can ballot,  it  is  not  a  fit  ballot  for  a  Democratic 
ballot-box,  and  is  cast  aside.  This  is  generally, 
though  not  universally,  true.  Now,  if  the  Repub- 
lican party  means  harm  and  injury  to  the  South, 
and  Southern  whites,  the  South  could  not  be 
blamed  for  its  attitude  toward  negro  suffrage.  But 
what  are  the  facts  ?  The  most  prosperous  periods 
the  South  has  known  since  the  war,  have  been 
those  in  which  the  Republican  party  controlled  in 
national  affairs.  The  South  is  beginning  to  find 
out  some  things  on  these  lines,  and  the  tremen- 
dous support  which  Major  McKinley  received  in 
the  South  for  the  Presidency  is  a  significant  and 
suggestive  fact.  If  the  Southern  whites  would 
cease  to  be  solid  because  of  the  "  negro  question," 
or  any  other  question,  and  join  the  good  people  of 


RECONSTRUCTION  AND  SUFFRAGE.  97 

the  North,  or  West,  or  East,  on  all  measures  that 
look  to  the  good  of  the  whole  people,  the  sectional 
issue  would  be  a  thing  of  the  past,  and  the  con- 
servative, law-loving,  and  liberty-honoring  people 
of  all  sections  would  be  united  for  the  advance- 
ment and  up-building  of  the  whole  country. 

The  time  has  come  when  men  should  vote  their 
convictions.  The  "  negro  scare  "  is  a  myth.  The 
colored  people  of  the  South  do  not  wish  to  control 
or  dominate  the  South.  They  recognize  the  fact, 
that  virtue,  intelligence,  and  wealth  must  rule  the 
world,  and  the  intelligent,  sensible  members  of  the 
colored  race  understand  that  the  negro,  like  all 
other  people,  will  advance  to  control  and  influence, 
only  as  these  qualities  of  useful  citizenship  lift 
them  up. 

It  is  claimed  that  the  South  must  remain  solid, 
because  of  the  negro.  This  is  an  unwarranted 
conclusion,  based  upon  false  premises.  The  negro 
is  not  a  menace  to  the  South.  His  natural  sym- 
pathies are  with  the  white  man  on  all  questions 
that  look  to  the  development  and  advancement  of 
good  government  and  a  high  civilization.  Unlike 
the  Chinese,  the  Japanese,  the  Italian,  and  the 
Pole,  he  has  a  fixed  habitation.  He  is  not  in  the 
South  as  a  migratory  denizen,  ready  to  leave  when 
he  shall  have  acquired  sufficient  means  to  take 
him  back  to  his  native  land.  He  aspires  to  be 
like  his  white  brother,  to  imitate  his  progress,  and 
7 


98  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE   WHITE  MAN 

to  emulate  his  thrift  and  prosperity.  His  ambition 
is  to  become  a  sharer  in  his  civilization,  and  to 
participate  in  the  glorious  destiny  of  Anglo-Saxon 
achievement. 

Many  white  people  believe  that  the  negro  hates 
the  white  man  and  distrusts  him.  I  believe  this 
to  be  wholly  false.  Even  the  wrongs  of  slavery 
have  been  well-nigh  forgotten,  and  no  race  has 
ever  so  thoroughly  confided  their  all  to  another  as 
the  negroes  have  to  the  white  people  of  the  South. 
The  colored  man  loves  his  white  brother,  trusts 
him  often  to  his  own  undoing,  and  would  help  him 
in  his  hours  of  distress  and  danger.  In  ten  thou- 
sand ways  the  negroes  of  the  South  have  shown 
their  love  for  the  white  people.  Not  even  suspi- 
cion generated  by  the  memory  of  the  olden  times, 
and  by  the  infliction  of  present  injustice,  has 
alienated  his  affection  from  his  white  neighbor  at 
the  South.  They  are  naturally  docile  and  friendly, 
and  with  kind  treatment  can  be  made  the  strong- 
est ally  the  white  man  can  have. 

With  a  better  understanding  of  the  negro,  the 
white  people  will  not  be  so  badly  frightened  at  the 
"  colored  scare."  They  will  then  help  rather  than 
hinder  him,  and  feel  safe  as  his  neighbor  and 
friend.  God  grant  that  this  era  of  friendliness 
and  good  feeling  may  speedily  set  in. 


CHAPTER  XL 

THE  NECESSITY  FOE  EDUCATION  EECOGNIZED. 

THE  negro  was  quick  to  see  the  necessity  for 
education.  Ignorant  as  lie  was,  he  seized 
the  idea  that  his  future  was  to  be  determined  by 
the  degree  and  extent  of  the  enlightenment 
he  should  receive.  The  desire  for  knowledge 
amounted  almost  to  a  passion  with  him,  and  it  was 
a  matter  of  astonishment  among  the  whites  with 
what  persistence  and  regularity  he  saw  to  it  that 
his  children  avail  themselves  of  all  the  opportu- 
nities afforded  for  their  education.  Everywhere 
the  race  encouraged  the  spirit  of  education,  and 
welcomed  the  building  of  school-houses  and  the 
coming  of  teachers. 

We  have  known  of  communities  and  have  read 
of  nations  who  resisted  the  incoming  of  knowledge. 
There  are  neighborhoods  in  the  South  among  the 
whites  who  have  as  yet  failed  to  observe  the  im- 
portant part  which  education  plays  in  the  pros- 
perity and  upbuilding  of  men,  and  have  made 
little  or  no  provision  for  the  instruction  of  their 
children.  Missionaries  to  foreign  fields  tell  us  it 
is  difficult  to  plant  schools  among  the  heathen 
which  propose  to  teach  nothing  but  general  knowl- 

99 


100  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN 

edge.  In  China  and  Japan,  until  recently,  a 
teacher  was  despised  as  much  as  a  Christian  mis- 
sionary, the  great  masses  of  the  people  preferring 
"darkness  rather  than  light."  This  opposition  to 
the  incoming  of  knowledge  has  been  the  greatest 
hinderance  to  the  spread  of  the  gospel  among  the 
millions  of  India  aud  the  islands  of  the  sea. 

This  was  not  true  of  the  negro.  He  not  only 
tolerated  the  teacher,  but  greeted  and  welcomed 
him  as  the  harbinger  of  good,  as  the  bearer  of 
light,  as  the  publisher  of  good  tidings.  He  longed 
to  see  his  children  have  a  chance  in  the  race  of 
progress,  realizing  as  no  other  ignorant  and  illiter- 
ate race  has,  the  necessity  of  knowledge. 

History  has  failed  to  show  a  single  instance  of 
permanent  progress  and  stability  of  any  com- 
munity or  people  who  were  ignorant  and  unen- 
lightened. It  is  either  knowledge  or  extinction, 
either  progress  or  barbarism.  The  Roman  was  the 
master  of  the  Gaul  and  the  Briton  so  long  as  his 
civilization  was  superior.  When  the  Roman  re- 
ceded in  knowledge,  and  the  Gaul  and  the  Briton 
advanced,  the  Roman  dropped  back  in  the  master- 
ship of  the  world,  and  the  Gaul  and  the  Briton 
advanced  to  its  conquest.  England's  sway,  her 
wide  territorial  domain,  exceeding  that  of  Rome 
in  her  palmiest  days,  is  attributed  to  the  splendid 
enlightenment  of  her  people.  She  rules  the  seas, 
and  the  sun  never  goes  down  upon  her  possessions, 


NECESSITY  FOR  ED UCA  TION  RECOGNIZED.    101 

because  behind  her  guns  are  enlightened  freemen 
who  conquer  by  the  might  of  knowledge.  Knowl- 
edge is  power.  It  has  been  so  in  the  past.  It  will 
be  so  in  all  the  future. 

I  repeat  it  that  the  negro  was  swift  to  seize  the 
idea  of  education.  Nor  has  he  abated  one  moment 
in  his  zeal  for  it,  and,  under  difficulties  that  would 
have  appalled  a  people  less  determined,  can  show 
a  record  in  the  educational  statistics  of  this  coun- 
try of  which  he  may  proudly  boast. 

Even  while  the  war  between  the  States  was 
still  in  progress,  and  before  Appomattox  had  sealed 
the  doom  of  the  Confederacy  and  closed  forever 
the  chapter  of  slavery,  the  educational  movement 
among  the  negroes  began.  Philanthropists  from 
the  North  followed  in  the  wake  of  the  victorious 
Union  armies,  and  found  willing  minds  and  hearts 
yearning  for  the  boon  of  knowledge.  Nothing  in 
the  history  of  the  American  negro  redounds  more 
to  his  lasting  credit  than  this  glad  welcoming  of 
light  and  learning.  The  joy  of  a  newly-acquired 
freedom,  the  wild  delight  of  the  first  moments  of 
liberty  could  not  blind  him  to  his  condition  of 
ignorance,  or  induce  him  to  neglect  the  means  by 
which  he  was  to  convert  his  freedom  into  real  and 
lasting  benefit  to  himself  and  his  children. 

But  few  have  taken  the  pains  to  inquire  what 
was  done  on  educational  lines  for  and  by  the  negro 
even  during  the  progress  of  the  war.     Rev.  J.  L, 


102  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

M.  Curry,  LL.D.,  secretary  of  the  trustees  of  the 
John  F.  Slater  fund,  furnishes  some  valuable  in- 
formation on  this  subject.     He  says  : 

"  Almost  synchronously  with  the  earliest  occu- 
pation of  any  portion  of  the  seceding  States  by 
the  Union  Army,  efforts  were  begun  to  give  the 
negroes  some  schooling.  In  September,  1861, 
under  the  guns  of  Fortress  Monroe,  a  school  was 
opened  for  the  'contrabands  of  war.'  In  1862, 
schools  were  extended  to  Washington,  Portsmouth, 
Norfolk  and  Newport  News,  and  afterwards  to  the 
Port  Royal  Islands,  on  the  coast  of  South  Caro- 
lina, to  Newbern  and  Roanoke  Island  in  North 
Carolina.  The  proclamation  of  emancipation,  Jan- 
uary 1,  1863,  gave  freedom  to  all  slaves  reached 
by  the  armies,  increased  the  refugees  and  awakened 
a  fervor  of  religious  and  philanthropic  enthusiasm 
for  meeting  the  physical,  moral  and  intellectual 
wants  of  those  suddenly  thrown  upon  charity.  In 
October,  1863,  General  Banks,  then  commanding 
the  Department  of  the  Gulf,  created  commissions 
of  enrollment,  who  established  the  first  public 
schools  for  Louisiana.  Seven  were  soon  in  opera- 
tion, with  twenty-three  teachers  and  an  average 
attendance  of  1,422  scholars.  On  March  22, 1864, 
he  issued  General  order  No.  38,  which  constituted 
a  Board  of  Education  for  the  rudimental  instruc- 
tion of  the  freedmen  in  the  Department,  so  as  to 


NECESSITY  FOR  ED  UCA  TION  RECOGNIZED.    103 

1  place  within  their  reach  the  elements  of  knowl- 
edge.' 

"  Schools,  previously  established,  were  transfer- 
red to  this  Board,  others  were  opened,  and  in 
December,  1864,  it  reported  under  its  supervision 
95  schools,  162  teachers,  and  9,571  scholars.  This 
system  continued  until  1865," 

On  December  17,  1862,  Col.  John  Eaton  was 
ordered  by  General  Grant  to  assume  a  general 
supervision  of  freedmen  in  the  Department  of 
Tennessee  and  Arkansas.  In  the  early  autumn  of 
that  year,  schools  had  been  established,  and  they 
were  multiplied  during  1863  and  1864.  His  head- 
quarters were  first  at  Yicksburg,  subsequently  at 
Memphis.  His  assistant-superintendent  reported, 
March  31,  1865,  in  and  around  Vicksburg  and 
Natchez,  30  schools,  60  teachers,  and  4,393  pupils 
enrolled.  In  Memphis,  1,590  pupils,  and  in  the 
entire  supervision  7,360  in  attendance.  These 
schools  were  taught,  generally,  by  heroic  women, 
who  left  their  homes,  and  braved  the  perils  of  war 
to  plant  the  seeds  of  light  and  knowledge  in  minds 
which  had  been  long  benighted.  We  have  not 
space  to  record  their  names  here,  but  they  are 
written  in  the  book  of  life. 

Thus  the  first  beginnings  of  the  educational 
movement,  for  the  benefit  of  Southern  negroes, 
were  at  a  time  when  war  was  desolating  the  land. 
In  defiance  of  the  laws  of  the   Southern  States, 


104  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

which  had  not  yet  been  conquered,  the  colored 
people  sent  their  children  to  school  wherever  and 
whenever  they  could.  It  is  true  that  they  did  so 
only  where  the  Union  army  was  in  possession  of 
the  country,  but,  amidst  the  varying  fortunes  of 
war,  they  were  likely  to  lose  the  territory  they  had 
acquired,  and  often  did.  It  took,  therefore,  no 
little  courage  to  defy  the  legislation  of  the  States, 
prohibiting  their  attendance  upon  schools,  but 
neither  the  fear  of  the  law,  nor  the  poverty  of 
their  circumstances  prevented  them  from  support- 
ing, as  far  as  they  could,  and  from  patronizing,  the 
schools,  which  were  established  by  their  Northern 
friends  for  their  education. 

To  the  white  people  of  the  North,  who  thus 
aided  the  colored  race,  not  only  to  freedom,  but  to 
that  education  which  was  to  prepare  it  for  free- 
dom, the  negro  owes,  and  will  ever  owe,  a  debt  of 
gratitude.  To  General  Grant,  General  Banks, 
Colonel  Eaton,  Secretary  Stanton,  and  to  all  who 
founded  and  favored  the  first  schools  for  colored 
people,  we  would  ascribe  all  praise,  and  hold  their 
names  and  memory  in  enduring  reverence. 

We  have  alluded  to  the  fact  that  there  were 
statutory  laws  in  the  Southern  States  prohibiting 
the  education  of  negroes.  These  laws  forbade 
meetings  for  teaching,  reading  and  writing.  The 
Nat  Turner  Insurrection  in  Southampton  county, 
Virginia,  in  1831,  had  alarmed  the  Southern  peo. 


NECESSITY  FOR  ED UCA  TION  RECOGNIZED.    105 

pie,  and  stringent  laws  were  passed  by  the  States, 
strengthening  the  prohibitions  and  penalties  against 
education.  Nevertheless,  there  were  many  good 
men  and  women  in  the  South,  who  could  not  re- 
concile it  with  their  consciences  to  keep  their  slaves 
utterly  benighted.  We  record  with  pleasure 
the  words  of  Hon.  J.  L.  M.  Curry,  whom  we 
have  already  quoted  in  another  connection.  He 
says  : 

"  Severe  and  general  as  were  these  laws,  they 
rarely  were  applied,  and  were  seldom,  if  ever,  en- 
forced against  teaching  of  individuals,  or  of  groups, 
on  plantations,  or  at  the  homes  of  the  owners.  It 
was  often  true  that  the  mistress  of  a  household,  or 
her  children,  would  teach  the  house-servants,  and 
on  Sundays  include  a  larger  number.  There  were 
also  Sunday-schools,  in  which  black  children  were 
taught  to  read,  notably  the  school  in  which  Stone- 
wall Jackson  was  a  leader.  It  is  pleasant  to  find 
recorded  in  the  memoir  of  Dr.  Boj^ce,  a  trustee  of 
the  Slater  Fund,  from  its  origin  until  his  death, 
that,  as  an  editor,  a  preacher,  and  a  citizen,  he 
was  deeply  interested  in  the  moral  and  religious 
instruction  of  the  negroes.  But,  after  a  most  lib- 
eral estimate  for  the  efforts  made  to  teach  the 
negroes,  still  the  fact  exists  that,  as  a  people,  they 
were  wholly  uneducated  in  schools.  Slavery  doomed 
the  millions  to  ignorance,  and  in  this  condition 
they  were  when  the  war  began." 


106  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

We  quote  these  words,  not  only  to  show  that 
there  were  many  good  people  in  the  South,  who 
deplored  the  evils  of  slavery,  and  endeavored  in 
some  sort  to  mitigate  them,  but  also  to  show  that 
the  negro  was  always  ready  and  anxious  to  receive 
instruction,  no  matter  by  whom  imparted. 


CHAPTER   XII. 

EAPID  GROWTH  OF  THE  EDUCATIONAL  SPIRIT. 

THERE  were  in  this  country  in  1894,  61,000,000 
whites  and  8,000,000  negroes.  The  growth 
of  the  colored  population  has  been  phenomenal 
when  we  consider  the  conditions  under  which  this 
growth  has  gone  on.  Mr.  Bancroft,  the  historian 
of  the  United  States,  gives  perhaps  the  most  reli- 
able estimate  of  the  number  of  slaves  in  this  coun- 
try during  colonial  times.  His  estimate  is  as  fol- 
lows, beginning  with  the  year  1750  : 

1750 220,000 

1754 260,000 

1760 310,000 

1770 462,000 

1780 562,000 

A  more  reliable  estimate  is  furnished  by  the 
records  since  1780.  Beginning  with  1790  each 
succeeding  decennial  enumeration  is  shown  in  the 
following  table : 

1790 757,000 

1800 1,002,037 

1810 1,377,808 

1820 1,771,656 

107 


108  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

1830 2,328,642 

1840 2,873,648 

1850 3,638,808 

1860 4,441,830 

1870 4,880,009 

1880 6,580,793 

1890 7,470,040 

The  white  population  in  1790  was  3,172,006, 
and  in  1890  was  54,983,890.  From  this  it  appears 
that  there  were  nearly  eighteen  times  as  many 
whites  in  1890  as  there  were  in  1790,  and  that  the 
negroes  were  nearly  ten  times  as  numerous  in  1890 
as  they  were  in  1790. 

The  whites  have  increased  more  rapidly  for  sev- 
eral reasons.  First,  their  material  condition  was 
more  favorable,  having  the  benefits  of  superior 
clothing,  food,  shelter  and  the  general  physiological 
advantages  which  the  conveniences  and  comforts 
of  life  secure.  Second,  the  whites  have  had  im- 
mensely the  better  of  it  in  the  additions  which 
have  been  made  to  their  numbers  by  the  millions 
of  foreigners  which  have  flocked  to  America. 
Since  the  close  of  the  slave  trade  in  1808  there 
has  been  but  little  addition  to  the  colored  popula- 
tion by  immigration.  They  have  increased  in 
spite  of  these  facts — the  whites  only  about  doub- 
ling them  in  the  percentage  of  growth  in  the  last 
one  hundred  years. 

"We  may  at  least  conclude  from  these  figures 


RAPID  GROWTH  OF  EDUCATIONAL  SPIRIT.    109 

that  the  colored  race  is  in  no  danger  of  extinction, 
and  he  who  undertakes  to  consider  the  negro 
problem  must  leave  this  possibility  out  of  the 
question. 

But  I  am  concerned  chiefly  in  this  chapter  with 
the  educational  question  as  it  relates  to  the  negro. 
I  propose  to  show  that  no  race  of  people  in  any 
age  ever  rose  so  rapidly  from  absolute  illiteracy — 
that  no  people  who  had  been  kept  in  bondage  and 
ignorance  for  over  two  hundred  years  ever  mani- 
fested such  interest  in  their  own  enlightenment 
and  uplifting.  Happily  for  us  the  figures  are  at 
hand. 

The  Board  of  Education  furnishes  the  following 
striking  and  suggestive  table  of  the  comparative 
number  of  white  and  colored  children  in  the  pub- 
lic schools  of  this  country  in  1876-77  and  in 
1891-92: 


Year. 

Whites. 

Colored. 

1876-77  .    . 

.    .  1,827,139 

571,506 

1891-92  .    . 

.    .  3,607,549 

1,334,316 

It  is  thus  shown  that  while  the  number  of  white 
children  in  school  in  this  country  have  nearly 
doubled  since  1876-77,  the  number  of  colored 
children  in  these  schools  have  more  than  doubled 
since  that  time.  In  other  words,  to  quote  from 
the  Hon.  J.  L.  M.  Curry,  LL.D.,  in  1876  the  white 
pupils  constituted  13.5  of  the  white  population, 


110  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

and  in  twenty  years  this  proportion  increased  to 
nearly  22  per  cent.  On  the  other  hand  the  negro 
school  children  constituted  in  1876  only  3  per 
cent,  of  all  negroes,  but  in  the  same  twenty  years 
it  has  increased  to  nearly  20  per  cent,  of  all  negroes. 

This  evidently  demonstrates  that  the  growth  of 
the  educational  spirit  among  the  negroes  has  been 
more  decided  and  rapid  than  among  the  whites, 
and  the  negroes  should  have  credit  for  whatever 
there  is  of  hopeful  indication  in  these  figures. 

Dr.  Curry  further  says,  in  "  Statistics  of  Negroes 
in  the  United  States":  "In  1870,  five  years  after 
they  became  free,  the  records  of  the  census  show 
that  only  two-tenths  of  all  the  negroes,  ten  years 
of  age  and  over,  in  this  country,  could  read  and 
write.  Ten  years  later  the  proportion  had  in- 
creased to  three-tenths  of  the  whole  number,  and 
in  1890,  only  a  generation  after  they  were  eman- 
cipated, forty-three  out  of  every  one  hundred  ne- 
groes, ten  years  of  age  and  over,  were  able  to  read 
and  write.  These  figures  show  remarkably  rapid 
progress  in  elementary  education." 

What  suggestiveness  and  hopefulness  in  these 
figures?  If  education  means  progress  and  uplift- 
ing, then  it  would  seem  that  the  colored  race  is 
facing  an  era  of  gradual  and  healthy  civilization. 
Of  course,  I  do  not  contend  that  a  mere  ele- 
mentary education  is  sufficient  for  these  things, 
but  when  fifty  per  cent,  of  a  people  can  read  and 


RAPID  GROWTH  OF  EDUCATIONAL  SPIRIT.   Ill 

write,  and  thus  get  into  touch  with  the  written 
thought  of  their  own  and  of  all  times,  they  have 
the  educational  basis  upon  which  to  rise  to  high 
intellectual  achievement  and  civilization. 

The  white  race  in  the  South  can  show  little,  if 
any,  greater  per  cent,  in  the  growth  of  elementary 
education.  In  some  sections  the  percentage  of 
illiteracy  among  the  whites  is  even  greater  than 
among  the  negroes. 

Now,  all  this  progress  on  educational  lines  has 
been  achieved  under  great  difficulties.  Among 
these  we  mention: 

First,  the  extreme  reluctance  which  any  people, 
in  the  first  years  of  their  growth  from  illiteracy 
and  ignorance  to  the  rudiments  of  knowledge, 
have  for  the  change.  There  is  prejudice  against 
education — a  disposition  among  the  ignorant  to 
undervalue  and  discount  learning.  Ignorant  pa- 
rents say,  "  Let  my  children  do  as  I  have  done. 
Work  their  way  in  the  world  as  I  have,"  and  so 
they  oppose  and  resist  the  education  of  their  own 
offspring.  As  a  people  there  has  been  less  of  this 
spirit  among  the  negroes  than  perhaps  among  any 
people  who  were  ever  in  like  condition  with  them 
at  the  close  of  the  war  in  1865. 

Again,  many  Southern  whites  opposed  and  dis- 
couraged the  education  of  the  negro.  These  con- 
tended that  education  was  not  desirable  for  the 
negro;  that  it  would  unfit  him  for  the  field  and 


112  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

the  workshop;  that  it  would  inflate  him  with 
pride,  and  make  him  a  dangerous  and  vicious  citi- 
zen. Teachers  in  many  sections  were  discounte- 
nanced. White  teachers  for  colored  children  were 
considered  as  favoringand  practicing  sociale  quality, 
and  their  business  deemed  disreputable.  The  feel- 
ing was  so  strong,  and  is  to-day,  that  few  Southern 
white  people  could  be  induced  to  teach  in  negro 
schools,  and  the  negro  had  to  depend  for  teachers 
upon  the  few  of  his  own  race  that  were  compe- 
tent, and  upon  those  who  came  from  the  North, 
willing  to  brave  the  Southern  white  sentiment  and 
receive  social  ostracism  at  the  hands  of  Southern 
people.  I  allude  to  these  things  with  no  feeling  of 
resentment,  but  simply  to  show  the  facts  of  his- 
tory, and  how  they  operated  against  the  efforts  of 
the  negro  in  his  desire  for  education.  This  oppo- 
sition of  the  whites  to  education  for  the  negro, 
accounts,  to  some  extent,  for  the  fact  that  there 
was  so  little  progress  made  in  his  education  dur- 
ing the  years  immediately  following  the  war, 
there  being,  in  1870,  as  we  have  already  shown, 
but  three  per  cent,  of  the  colored  people  that 
could  read  and  write.  Gradually  as  the  school  got 
in  its  work,  the  supply  of  teachers  increased,  until 
at  the  present  time  there  are  a  sufficient  number 
of  colored  teachers  to  man  all  the  public  schools 
for  colored  people  in  the  South. 

The  more  intelligent  white  people  at  the  South 


RAPID  GROWTH  OF  EDLCATIONAL  SPIRIT.    113 

soon  became  convinced,  however,  that  education 
Tor  the  negro  was  not  such  a  bad  thing  after  all; 
mat  it  did  not  operate  to  injure  him  as  a  laborer 
or  a  citizen,  but,  on  the  contrary,  it  improved  and 
helped  him  in  every  way.  Many  distinguished 
and  leading  men,  among  whom  we  gratefully  men- 
tion the  late  Bishop  Atticus  G.  Haygood  and  Rev. 
Dr.  J.  L.  M.  Curry,  began  to  plead  for  the  educa- 
tion of  the  negro.  The  Southern  States  began  to 
adopt  the  public  school  system,  and  for  the  first 
time  public  moneys  were  appropriated  to  common 
schools.  In  my  own  State,  such  men  as  Governor 
Joseph  E.  Brown,  General  John  B.  Gordon,  Sena- 
tor Alfred  H.  Colquitt  and  other  leaders,  looked 
with  favor  on  the  movement  for  popular  educa- 
tion, and  did  much  by  their  influence  and  names 
to  remove  the  prejudice  of  the  masses. 

While  this  opposition  of  the  whites  retarded  the 
movement  in  its  earlier  stages,  I  am  glad  to  state 
that  there  is  but  little  practical  opposition  to  negro 
education  by  Southern  white  people  at  the  present 
time.  The  leading  men  of  the  South  favor  it 
with  tongue  and  pen,  on  the  hustings  and  in  the 
public  prints.  Ex-Governor  Northen  and  our 
present  governor,  Hon.  W.  Y.  Atkinson,  have, 
time  and  again,  gone  upon  record  as  the  friends  of 
negro  education,  pleading  for  a  liberal  policy  upon 
the  part  of  the  State,  not  only  in  behalf  of  the 
8 


114  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

education  of  the  white,  but  also  of  the  colored 
children  of  the  state. 

Still  another  difficulty  was  in  the  way  of  the 
education  of  the  colored  children  of  the  South 
(and  is  still  in  the  way),  and  that  was  poverty. 
Colored  parents  needed  their  children  in  the  fields 
to  help  them  make  and  gather  their  crops,  or  hired 
out  as  wage-earners  to  assist  them  in  the  support 
of  others  of  the  household.  They  could  ill-spare 
their  children  from  the  cotton-fields.  They  could 
ill-afford  to  lose  the  wages  which  their  labor 
brought  to  buy  bread  and  clothing.  It  would  be 
a  chapter  replete  with  pathos  could  it  be  written 
true  to  life,  that  recounted  the  sacrifices  the  ex- 
slaves  of  the  South  have  made,  and  are  still  mak- 
ing, to  educate  their  children.  They  subsisted  on 
scanty  fare,  wore  ragged  and  tattered  garments, 
went  without  shoes  often,  and  indeed  denied  them- 
selves of  all  things,  save  the  bare  necessaries  of 
life,  that  they  might  give  to  their  children  the  ad- 
vantages of  the  school.  Mothers  have  worn  their 
lives  away  at  the  wash-tub  and  the  cook-stove  to 
provide  their  children  with  food  and  clothing  and 
books,  that  they  might  get  the  advantages  of  edu- 
cation. Fathers  have  toiled  until  they  have  worn 
themselves  out  in  the  cotton-fields  and  on  the  rice 
and  sugar  plantations  of  the  South,  to  provide 
their  children  with  the  blessed  boon  of  knowledge. 

I  might  mention  other  causes  which  have  oper- 


RAPID  GROWTH  OF  EDUCATIONAL  SPIRIT.    115 

ated  against  the  negro  in  his  efforts  to  secure  edu- 
cation for  his  children.  Many  neighborhoods  in 
the  South  are  sparsely  settled,  and,  as  a  conse- 
quence, the  school-house  was  located  at  long  dis- 
tances from,  many  of  their  homes.  Many  thou- 
sands of  children  have  failed  to  get  the  advantage 
of  school  for  this  reason.  Often,  too,  it  has  been 
difficult  to  secure  a  building  of  any  sort  adapted  to 
the  purposes  of  a  school,  and  neighborhoods  have 
been  often  put  to  it  to  provide  suitable  houses  for 
this  object.  Many,  too,  have  been  too  poor  to  buy 
books,  and  I  have  known  of  quite  a  number  of 
instances  of  children  being  kept  from  school  be- 
cause their  parents  did  not  have  the  means  with 
which  to  supply  them  with  the  books  they  needed. 

And  so  we  see  that  no  race  ever  accomplished 
so  much  on  the  lines  of  elementary  education  in 
so  short  a  time  and  in  the  face  of  so  much  opposi- 
tions and  difficulties  as  the  negroes  have.  Their 
educational  history  is  indeed  a  miracle  and  a  mar- 
vel of  success  under  the  discouragements  with 
which  they  have  wrought  it  out. 

Surely  there  must  have  been  deep  down  in  the 
negro's  heart  a  yearning  desire  for  light  and  knowl- 
edge to  have  inspired  him  to  make  so  many  sacri- 
fices, and  to  overcome  so  many  discouragements  in 
order  to  get  these  blessings.  How  he  has  tri- 
umphed is  well  proven  in  the  immense  army,  now 
forty-three  per  cent,  of  all  the  race  ten  years  and 


116  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

over,  that  can  read  and  write.  Well  may  he  be 
proud  of  such  a  showing,  perhaps  unparalleled  in 
the  annals  of  the  race,  when  all  the  circumstances 
are  taken  into  the  account. 

With  love  and  gratitude  should  the  colored  sons 
and  daughters  remember  their  parents — some  of 
them  gone  to  their  reward — for  the  privations  they 
have  suffered  to  secure  to  them  the  priceless  bless- 
ing of  education.  Ah,  how  few  appreciate  these 
sacrifices  made  in  their  behalf!  How  few  honor 
enough  their  living  parents !  How  few  cherish 
the  dust  of  those  that  are  dead !  Rather  should 
they  rise  up  and  "  call  them  blessed,"  and  crown 
them  with  the  unfading  laurels  of  love  and  grati- 
tude. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  NEGRO  EDUCATION. 

THE  efforts  made  for  the  education  of  the 
negro,  during  the  Civil  War,  were  neces- 
sarily tentative  and  spasmodic.  Nothing  like  a 
general  system  of  instruction  could  be  put  into 
operation  even  in  those  sections  where  the  Union 
Army  held  possession  of  the  country,  though,  as 
we  have  shown,  a  noble  effort  was  made  and  much 
accomplished  in  the  department  of  the  Mississippi. 
At  the  close  of  the  war,  or  rather  a  few  weeks 
before  Gen.  Lee's  surrender  at  Appomattox,  Con- 
gress created  the  Freedmen's  Bureau.  The  acts 
authorizing  this  Bureau  passed  Congress  and  became 
the  law,  March  3,  1865.  Large  and  comprehen- 
sive powers  were  granted  to  this  benevolent  insti- 
tution ;  among  others,  it  was  authorized  to  promote 
education  among  the  colored  people  emancipated 
by  President  Lincoln's  proclamation,  January  1, 
1863.  The  commissioners  of  this  Board  were 
authorized  and  empowered  to  seize,  hold,  lease  or 
sell  all  buildings  and  tenements  and  any  lands 
appertaining  to  the  same  or  otherwise  formally 
held  under  color  of  title  by  the  Confederate  States, 
and  buildings  or  lands  held  in  trust  for  the  same, 

117 


118  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

and  use  the  same  or  appropriate  the  proceeds 
derived  therefrom  to  the  education  of  the  freed 
people. 

The  Bureau  was  attached  to  the  War  Depart- 
ment, and  Gen.  0.  0.  Howard  was  appointed  com- 
missioner, with  assistants.  He  was  given  almost 
unlimited  authority  and  great  liberty  and  scope 
of  action.  Within  five  years  from  the  date  of  the 
organization  of  this  Bureau,  the  school  division 
reported  the  establishment  of  2,118  schools,  with 
250,000  pupils.  This  Bureau  was  discontinued 
June  10,  1872.  Of  what  was  done  by  it  during 
the  last  two  years  of  its  existence  we  have  no 
means  of  ascertaining. 

It  is  certain  that  this  noble  charity,  inaugurated 
by  the  government,  was  the  first  great  association 
which  undertook  to  carry  education  to  the  colored 
people.  This  Board  expended  over  $21,000,000  in 
charities  during  the  seven  years  of  its  existence, 
but  as  to  how  much  of  this  amount  was  appropri- 
ated to  education  there  is  no  public  report  to 
show.  Gradually  the  schools  founded  by  this 
Bureau  were  turned  over  to  the  common  schools, 
and  merged  into  the  educational  system  of  the 
South. 

We  have  stated  that  the  Freedmen's  Bureau 
was  the  first  association  inaugurated  by  the  gov- 
ernment for  the  education  of  the  negro  While 
this  is  true,  other  benevolent  societies  antedated 


CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  NEGRO  EDUCATION.      119 

the  Bureau.  The  teachers,  earliest  in  the  field, 
were  from  the  American  Missionary  Association, 
the  Western  Freedmen's  Aid  Commission,  Ameri- 
can Baptist  Home  Missionary  Society  and  the 
Society  of  Friends.  After  the  surrender  of  Vicks- 
burg  and  the  occupation  of  Natchez,  the  United 
Presbyterians,  the  Reformed  Presbyterians,  the 
United  Brethren  in  Christ,  the  Northwestern 
Freedmen's  Aid  Commission,  and  the  National 
Freedmen's  Association  sent  out  teachers  and 
money  to  aid  in  the  education  of  the  negroes  in 
that  department  of  the  South. 

The  American  Missionary  Association  was  the 
chief  body,  apart  from  the  government,  in  the 
first  great  movement  that  looked  to  the  education 
of  the  negroes.  The  Freedmen's  Bureau  turned 
over  a  large  sum  of  money  to  this  society,  which 
was  to  be  used  only  in  erecting  and  purchasing 
buildings.  Since  the  withdrawal  of  several  relig- 
ious bodies  from  the  association,  in  order  to  push 
their  own  educational  enterprises  among  the 
negroes,  it  has  continued  to  prosecute  its  church 
educational  work  with  great  zeal.  It  has  now 
under  its  control — 

Chartered  Institutions 6 

Normal  Schools 29 

Common  Schools 43 

Attendance 12,609 

In  1866,  was  organized  the  Freedmen's  Aid  and 


120  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

Southern  Society  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church.  Under  that  compact,  powerful,  well- 
directed  and  enthusiastic  organization,  more  than 
$6,000,000  have  been  expended  in  the  work  of 
negro  education.  This  church  has  sixty-five  insti- 
tutions of  learning  for  colored  people,  388  teachers 
and  10,100  students,  and  $1,905,150  worth  of 
property,  and  $652,500  endowment. 

After  Appomattox  the  Baptist  Home  Mission  So- 
ciety was  formally  and  deliberately  committed  to  the 
education  of  the  blacks,  giving  itself  largely  to 
the  training  of  teachers  and  preachers.  In  May, 
1892,  it  had  under  its  management : 

Schools 24 

Pupils 4,861 

School  Property $750,000 

Endowment $156,000 

The  Presbyterian  Church  at  the  North  began  to 
assist  the  course  of  negro  education  in  1865. 
From  the  twenty-eighth  annual  report  of  the 
Board  of  Missions  for  Freedmen  it  appears  that 
besides  building  churches,  exertions  have  been  put 
forth  in  establishing  academies,  seminaries,  and  in 
equipping  and  supporting  a  large  university.  The 
report  mentions: 

Schools 15 

Amount  Expended $1,280,000 

Pupils 10,520 


CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  NEGRO  EDUCATION      121 

The  United  Presbyterian  Church  reports,  May, 
1893,  $2,558  in  endowment  for  colored  schools. 
The  Southern  Presbyterians  have  a  theological 
seminary  for  the  education  of  colored  ministers  at 
Tuscaloosa,  Alabama. 

The  Episcopal  Church,  through  the  Commission 
on  Church  Work,  during  the  seven  years  of  its 
existence,  1887  to  1893,  has  expended  $273,068 
for  the  education  of  colored  people.  The  reports 
do  not  give  the  number  of  teachers  and  pupils. 

The  Friends  have  done  good  work  in  the  cause 
of  negro  education.  They  have  sustained  over 
100  schools  and  have  expended  for  this  cause 
$1,004,129. 

No  man  among  the  colored  race  has  devoted 
more  time,  and  thought,  and  labor  to  the  cause  of 
negro  education  than  the  late  Bishop  Payne,  of  the 
African  Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  He  was  a 
native  of  South  Carolina,  born  in  1811.  In  1865 
he  was  called  to  the  presidency  of  Wilberforce 
University,  which  institution  he  bought  from  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  without  a  dollar  to 
make  the  first  payment  thereon.  He  raised  the 
money  by  personal  appeals  to  benevolent  people 
all  over  the  country,  and  finally  turned  it  over  to 
the  African  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  free  of 
debt.  He  is  rightly  called  "  the  apostle  of  educa- 
tion." He  led  on  his  people  in  this  great  work 
and  raised  thousands  of  dollars  to  prosecute  it. 


122  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

He  was  to  the  colored  people  in  the  religious  world 
what  Fred  Douglas  was  to  them  in  the  political 
world,  and  deserves  to  occupy  one  of  the  most  ex- 
alted places  in  the  history  of  his  country  and  in 
the  affections  of  his  people. 

The  commissioner  of  education  for  the  African 
Methodist  Church  has  just  published  the  following 
report,  showing  what  that  church  is  doing  in  the 
cause  of  secondary  and  higher  education.  Of 
course  these  schools  get  help  from  various  sources, 
but  the  appended  table  will  show  the  direction  all 
moneys  raised  by  and  for  the  African  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  is  taking.  It  is  a  splendid  show- 
ing of  what  just  one  branch  of  the  great  Metho- 
dist family  of  colored  churches  is  doing.  As  one 
of  the  official  representatives  of  this  church  I  feel 
a  laudable  pride  in  the  following  facts  and  figures : 

Number  of  Teachers  employed  167,  Students 
5533,  Value  of  School  Property  $756,47.5.00,  School 
Income  for  one  year  June  1st,  1895,  to  June  1st, 
1896,  $98,888.36,  an  increase  over  previous  year 
of  $17,342.46.  The  same  ratio  of  increase  being 
kept  up  for  this  present  year  will  show  an  income 
for  the  year  ending  June  1st,  1897,  of  over  $115,- 
000.00.     (See  table  of  schools  attached.) 


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CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE  CAPACITY  OF  THE  NEGKO  FOE  HIGHER  EDUCATION. 

YEARS  ago  it  was  popular  and  plausible  to  af- 
firm the  mental  incapacity  of  the  negro  for 
anything  like  high  civilization.  Many  of  the 
whites  believed  his  mission  in  the  world  was  sim- 
ply one  of  service  to  the  higher  and  better  en- 
dowed races ;  that  he  was  created  to  be  "  a  hewer 
of  wood  and  a  drawer  of  water."  They  even 
went  so  far  as  to  maintain  that  there  were  ethni- 
cal and  constitutional  reasons  which  remanded 
him  forever  to  inferior  position  in  the  great  family 
of  races.  It  was  seriously  argued  by  an  anony- 
mous writer  under  the  signature  of  "  Ariel,"  that 
the  negro  did  not  belong  to  the  Adamic  race  at 
all,  and  was  without  a  soul.  These  views  were 
popular  in  the  South  at  one  time  among  a  certain 
class. 

For  these  reasons,  especially,  the  contention 
that  the  negro  was  of  inferior  mental  endowments, 
many  were  led  to  oppose  all  efforts  looking  to  his 
education,  and  especially  to  his  higher  education. 
This  hostility  to  the  secondary  or  higher  education 
of  colored  people  is  still  kept  up  in  many  quarters, 

125 


126  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN 

and  it  is  seriously  claimed  by  those  who  oppose  it, 
that  it  is  a  waste  of  time  and  money. 

As  we  have  already  shown,  there  are  but  few 
negroes  of  unmixed  African  blood  in  the  South. 
Some  of  these,  with  black  skins  and  kinked  hair 
of  the  most  pronounced  type,  have  given  evidence 
of  intellectual  power  and  capacity  of  marked 
degree.  They  have  made  orators,  ministers, 
teachers,  and  even  wise  legislators,  standing  side 
by  side  with  their  Caucasian  brothers. 

But  we  are  no  longer  dealing  with  a  race  of  pure 
negroes,  and  it  is  no  longer  a  question  as  to  what 
an  unmixed  negro  can  accomplish  in  the  matter  of 
higher  education,  to  what  heights  of  learning  he 
can  attain,  and  how  much  knowledge  he  can  ap- 
propriate. The  question  is,  noio  what  can  a  race 
of  mixed  white  and  African  blood  achieve?  What 
can  the  Afro- Anglo-Saxon  accomplish  ? 

Take  the  view  of  our  white  brother  for  granted, 
and  admit,  for  the  sake  of  the  argument,  that  the 
pure  negro  is  not  susceptible  of  high  intellectual 
culture.  Then  I  reply,  you  have  not  touched  the 
problem  of  higher  education  for  the  negro.  You 
have  worked  it  with  an  important  equation  left 
out,  and  the  answer  you  have  gotten  is  not  one 
which  follows  from  the  "sum"  given. 

Can  the  negro  as  he  is  at  present  amalgamated, 
having  both  African  and  Indo-European  blood  in 
his  veins,  with  the  added  factor  that  the  Caucasian 


CAPA  CITY  FOR  HIGHER  ED  UCA  TION.  127 

element  of  blood  is  growing  daily  more  widely  dis- 
tributed, and  probably  more  rapidly  infused  from 
new  additions  than  ever  before;  can  the  negro  so 
constituted  in  this  country,  receive  to  any  general 
extent  higher  education? 

To  this  question  we  unhesitatingly  answer  that 
he  is  capable  of  any,  even  the  highest  education. 
While  this  is  the  real  problem,  the  practical  ques- 
tion that  is  submitted  we  would  insist  upon,  and 
emphasize  our  belief  in  the  highest  possibilities, 
even  for  the  unmixed  African  under  proper  train- 
ing and  environments. 

Now,  what  is  this  Afro-American  race  actually 
accomplishing  at  the  present  time  on  the  lines  of 
higher  education?  The  best  proof  of  any  propo- 
sition is  the  practical  exemplification  of  it,  Fig- 
ures and  facts  are  conclusive,  while  mere  theories 
are  often  misleading  and  false. 

Since  1876,  speaking  by  the  latest  figures  at 
hand,  $383,000,000  have  been  expended  by  the 
States  of  this  Union  for  public  schools,  and  it  is 
fair  to  estimate  that  about  $80,000,000  of  this  sum 
has  been  expended  for  the  education  of  the  colored 
children  of  this  country.  In  1865  there  were 
practically  no  negroes  that  could  read  and  write. 
In  1870,  five  years  later,  and  five  years  after  they 
were  emancipated,  the  records  of  the  census  show 
that  two-tenths  of  all  the  negroes  in  the  United 
States  could  read  and  write.     Ten  years  later,  or 


128  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

fifteen  years  after  they  were  set  free,  three-tenths 
of  the  whole  number  could  read  and  write,  and  in 
1890,  or  twenty-five  years  after  freedom,  forty- 
three  out  of  every  one  hundred  negroes  that  were 
ten  years  of  age  and  over,  could  read  and  write. 

A  race  so  swift  to  rise  from  absolute  illiteracy 
would  naturally  be  supposed  to  be  capable  of  ad- 
vancing still  further  along  the  lines  of  higher 
education.  And  the  facts  demonstrate  this  in  the 
face  of  difficulties  which  have  seemed  all  along 
from  a  mere  human  view  of  the  case  to  be  insur- 
mountable. 

In  the  statistics,  of  the  dates  of  1893  and  1894, 
it  appears  that  in  the  schools  designed  for  the 
secondary  or  higher  education  of  the  colored  peo- 
ple of  this  country  there  were  31,857  pupils.  Of 
these  940  were  in  the  colleges  classes  proper. 
United  States  School  Commissioner  Harris  says,  in 
the  Atlantic  Monthly,  for  June,  1892  :  "It  is  clear 
that  money  expended  for  the  secondary  and  higher 
education  of  the  negro  accomplishes  far  more  for 
him.  It  is  seed  sown  where  it  brings  forth  an 
hundred  fold,  because  each  one  of  the  pupils  of 
these  higher  institutions  is  a  centre  of  diffusion  of 
superior  methods  and  refining  influences  among  an 
imitative  and  impressible  race.  State  and  National 
aid,  as  well  as  private  bequests,  should  take  this 
direction  first.  There  should  be  no  gift  or  bequest 
for    common    or    elementary    instruction.      This 


CAPA  CITY  FOR  HIGHER  ED  UCA  TION.  129 

should  be  left  to  the  common  schools,  and  all  out- 
side aid  should  be  concentrated  on  the  secondary 
and  the  higher  education." 

These  are  the  views  of  the  most  profound  and 
well-equipped  authority  on  matters  educational  in 
the  United  States.  His  opinions  are  accepted  as 
authoritative  by  the  students  of  the  educational 
question  in  this  country.  In  the  words  we  have 
just  quoted,  he  not  only  assumes  that  the  colored 
people  are  capable  of  receiving  higher  education, 
but  maintains  that  money  expended  to  this  end 
yields  the  far  best  results. 

It  is  useless  to  multiply  figures  and  authorities 
to  demonstrate  a  proposition  which  is  being  proven 
every  day  by  the  number  of  graduates  being 
turned  out  from  negro  colleges,  and  by  the  larger 
number  who  are  receiving  secondary  education  in 
the  schools  which  have  been  founded  by  the 
bequests  of  philanthropic  men  in  every  section  of 
this  country.  Higher  education  is  not  only  pos- 
sible to  the  negro,  but  it  yields  the  best  revenues 
to  the  race,  in  that  it  furnishes  the  teachers  who 
in  turn  become  the  "  centres  of  diffusion  of  superior 
methods  and  refining  influences  among  an  imita- 
tive and  impressible  race." 

The  fact  being  settled  that  the  negro  is  capable 
of  receiving  the  higher  education,  and  that  educa- 
tion on  these  lines  yields  the  largest  revenues  to 
him  in  beneficial  results,  let  us  consider  the  impor- 
9 


130  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

tance  of  pressing  it  as  widely  as  possible  at  this 
present  time. 

The  same  reasons  that  make  higher  education 
necessary  to  the  best  civilization  among  white 
people,  make  it  so  to  the  negroes.  The  intelligent 
whites  are  unanimous  in  their  advocacy  of  the 
higher  schools  and  colleges. 

The  colored  people  need  it  now,  especially  for 
the  equipment  of  their  ministry  in  all  their 
churches.  No  one  will  dispute  the  proposition 
that  an  educated  ministry  is  the  proper  ideal  for 
the  church  of  God.  While  I  would  not  underrate 
or  disparage  the  work  of  uneducated  men  in  the 
pulpits  of  our  churches,  yet  it  would  be  irrational 
to  attribute  their  success  to  the  want  of  educa- 
tional equipment.  They  have  wrought  a  good 
work,  despite  the  disadvantages  under  which  they 
have  labored.  The  pulpit  needs  and  must  have 
men  in  it  who  can  intelligently  expound  the  Scrip- 
tures and  "  rightly  divide  the  word  of  God."  The 
pulpit  must  be  in  advance  of  the  pew — a  centre 
of  spiritual  and  intellectual  light  for  the  illumina- 
tion of  the  hearts  and  minds  of  the  hearers — else 
it  will  come  to  pass  that  the  ministry  will  be  com- 
posed of  those  who  are  "  blind,  leading  the  blind." 
I  am  aware  that  many  of  our  so-called  educated 
ministers  have  not  measured  up  to  the  require- 
ments of  their  sacred  office ;  that,  in  many 
instances,  they  have  been  signal  failures  and  have 


CAPA  CITY  FOR  HIGHER  EDUCA  TION.  131 

accomplished  far  less  than  their  less  advantaged 
brethren  in  the  same  calling.  But  this  does  not 
furnish  an  argument  against  an  educated  minis- 
try, but  must  be  chargeable  to  other  sources  of 
weakness  found  in  the  frailties  of  human  nature, 
or  the  utter  depravity  of  the  heart  of  man.  Edu- 
cated men  have  been  sometimes  led  into  the 
responsible  office  of  the  ministry  when  they  were 
not  called  of  God  to  this  work.  Anxious  and 
ambitious  friends  have  persuaded  them  to  assume 
these  sacred  duties,  heedless  of  the  fact  that  it  is 
"  God  that  willeth."  Many,  doubtless,  with  ora- 
torical gifts  and  learning,  have  deemed  the  pulpit 
the  best  field  for  the  display  of  these  accomplish- 
ments, and  have  gone  into  the  pulpit  through  vain- 
glorious motives.  These  things  account  for  the 
failure  of  some  of  our  most  cultured  and  scholarly 
men  in  the  ministry.  But  let  the  educated  minis- 
try be  truly  set  apart  of  God,  and  aglow  with  the 
zeal  and  fervor  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  then  will  we 
see  the  greatest  results  wrought  through  religion 
and  sanctified  education  for  the  enlightenment  and 
salvation  of  men. 

Not  only  do  we  need  higher  education  for  our 
ministry,  but  for  our  teachers,  who  are  largely  to 
mould  the  destiny  of  our  race  in  this  country  for 
all  time.  The  school-house  is  the  manufactory 
where  the  civilization  of  a  people  is  wrought. 
Here  are  born  the  aspirations  of  a  race,  here  the 


132  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

tree  is  trimmed,  and  fertilized,  and  cultured,  that 
is  to  bear  the  fruit  of  a  nation's  thought.  Here 
the  mind  is  lighted  that  is  to  shed  the  illuminat- 
ing power  of  knowledge  to  the  world.  The  school- 
house  is  the  birth-place  of  a  nation's  power,  pro- 
gress and  civilization.  How  important  then  is  the 
office  of  the  teacher  who  presides  over  this  little 
temple  of  the  mind,  this  plant  of  the  intellect,  this 
power-house  of  the  world!  No  ignoramus  should 
be  given  rulership  and  authority  here,  but  an  edu- 
cated, refined  and  intelligent  brain  capable  of  di- 
recting, controlling  and  illuminating.  More  than 
books,  an  educated  man  can  communicate  ideas, 
thoughts,  culture.  He  is  an  incarnated  library,  a 
living  book,  a  breathing  intellectual  force,  from 
whom  goes  forth  to  the  young  committed  to  his 
charge  not  only  the  cold  elements  of  knowledge, 
but  the  inspiring  power  of  it,  infused  through  the 
mind  of  the  pupil  like  the  glow  from  heated  metal. 
We  plead  for  a  higher  education  because  we  want 
teachers  for  the  negroes,  not  ignoramuses  and 
know-nothings. 

But  we  need  higher  education  because  we  need 
cultured  men  in  all  the  walks  of  life,  and  we 
know  it  is  impossible  to  grow  them  in  the  soil  of 
ignorance.  We  need  representative  men  who  can 
stand  for  our  race  in  any  coterie,  on  any  rostrum, 
in  any  assembly.  We  have  some  of  these,  but  we 
need  multitudes  of  them,  not  only  to  demonstrate 


CAPA  CITY  FOR  HIGHER  ED  UCA  TIOJV.  133 

the  capacity  of  the  negro,  but  to  furnish  an  inspi- 
ration to  our  people  for  knowledge.  No  man  can 
estimate  the  influence  even  of  a  few  cultured,  in- 
tellectual men.  Less  than  five  hundred  men  cre- 
ated the  magnificent  wealth  of  Grecian  literature. 
Less  than  a  thousand  names  shine  in  the  crown  of 
England's  literary  glory,  as  yet  unapproached  in 
its  richness  by  any  other  people  ancient  or  mod- 
ern. We  as  a  race  need  the  higher  education  that 
we  may  grow  these  great  intellectual  giants  who 
shall  illustrate  the  genius  of  our  people  by  their 
triumphs  on  the  thought-fields  of  the  world. 

I  am  not  foolish  enough  to  contend  that  higher 
education  is  now,  or  in  the  near  future,  possible 
to  the  great  masses  of  the  colored  people  of  this 
country.  I  do  not  hope  to  confer  this  boon  upon 
all  of  them,  any  more  than  I  hope  for  it  for  the 
great  masses  of  the  white  people.  Perhaps,  at 
this  stage  of  the  world's  history,  it  is  not  best  for 
all  men.  But,  as  Providence  opens  the  way,  we 
must  be  ready  to  furnish  it  to  those  whose  circum- 
stances and  gifts  render  it  possible  and  desirable 
for  them  to  get  it. 

I  will  say  that  I  rely  upon  this  means,  under 
the  Gospel,  as  the  greatest  agency  for  the  uplifting 
of  the  negro.  Wealth  and  social  elevation  are 
bound  up  in  the  higher  Christian  education  of  our 
people.  We  are  dreaming  when  we  look  for  real 
progress  and  permanent  improvement  in  any  other 


134  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN 

direction.  Let  Wilberforce,  Fisk,  Roger  Williams, 
Allen,  Wiley,  Livingstone,  Waters,  Morris,  Brown, 
Clarke,  Payne,  Gammon,  and  all  other  colleges  and 
universities  of  our  church  and  of  our  sister 
churches,  for  the  higher  education  of  our  people, 
go  on  in  their  grand  work.  Let  them  continue,  on 
a  wider  scale  even,  to  equip  and  send  forth  the  men 
and  women  capable  of  standing  abreast  with  the 
thought  and  culture  of  this  age.  Then  will  our 
people  realize  the  power  of  educated,  cultured 
leadership  in  our  pulpits,  in  our  schools,  and  in 
the  social  walks  of  life,  to  enlighten,  elevate  and 
save  our  race. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

ACCUMULATION  OP  PROPERTY. 

THE  negro,  living  for  two  hundred  years  in  a 
state  of  servitude,  learned  the  lesson  of 
labor.  He  did  not  and  could  not  learn  the  lesson 
of  accumulation.  All  civilized  nations  have  caught 
the  Roman  idea  of  private  property,  and  much  of 
their  law  relates  to  the  titles  and  tenures  by  which 
private  property  is  protected  and  held.  This  idea 
is  at  the  foundation  of  all  industrial  enterprise 
and  development,  and  is  the  motive  for  the  cre- 
ation of  individual  wealth  which  at  last  is  the 
capital  of  a  nation.  Until  a  people  get  from  under 
the  burden  of  poverty  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
communistic  and  patriarchal  ideas  of  property  on 
the  other,  national  wealth  is  impossible. 

The  nations  which  have  risen  to  empire  in  the 
world  have  been  backed  by  wealth.  Babylon, 
EgyjDt,  Assyria,  Persia,  though  poor  beside  the 
wealthy  nationalities  of  modern  times,  were  rich 
for  that  age  of  the  world.  Greece,  Rome  and 
Carthage  had  the  wealth  of  the  world  at  a  later 
period,  and  these  were  the  nations  who  moulded 
the  destiny  of  the  human  race.  This  proposition 
holds  good  to-day.     England's  wealth  is,  and  has 

135 


136  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

been,  her  defense.  It  was  her  money  that  saved 
Europe  from  the  grasp  of  Napoleon  when  all  the 
continental  powers  were  exhausted  and  defeated. 

The  negro  has  no  future  if  he  is  a  failure  in  the 
matter  of  accumulating  property.  If  he  has  not 
individuality  sufficient  to  stimulate  him  to  improve 
his  material  condition,  he  had  as  well  drop  out  of 
the  race  for  progress,  and  be  content  to  be  a 
"hewer  of  wood  and  a  drawer  of  water"  for  the 
rest  of  time. 

But  is  he  a  failure  in  this  regard?  Let  us  con- 
sider the  matter  briefly.  I  venture  the  assertion, 
bold  as  it  may  seem,  that  no  race  in  history,  with 
absolutely  nothing  to  begin  with,  has  in  so  short 
a  time  accumulated  as  much  wealth  as  the  colored 
people  of  America.  Judge  Albion  W.  Tourgee 
said  in  his  address  to  the  Mohawk  Conference  in 
1890 :  "  They  (the  colored  people)  are  better 
economists  than  we  are.  They  live  with  less  ex- 
penditure than  any  equal  number  of  white  people. 
A  larger  proportion  of  them  have  become  land- 
holders than  of  any  equally  impoverished  and  un- 
prepared class  of  whites  in  a  like  period.  A 
smaller  proportion  of  them  are  supported  by  pub- 
lic charity,  a  larger  number  of  them  have  become 
rich,  and  their  aggregate  possessions  are  greater 
than  any  equal  number  of  illiterate  landless 
whites,  without  inheritance  or  fortuitous  discovery, 
ever  accumulated  in  twenty-five  years." 


A  CCUMULA  TION  OF  PR  OPER  TV.  137 

From  the  most  reliable  authorities  at  hand,  we 
find  that  the  negroes  of  this  country  pay  taxes  on 
three  hundred  millions  of  property,  and  this  has 
been  invested  over  and  above  their  living.  They 
have  made  millions  since  the  war,  which  have 
gone  into  the  support  of  their  families,  their 
churches  and  their  schools,  and  could  they  have 
been  educated  to  soberness  and  economy,  doubt- 
less they  could  reckon  as  their  wealth  more  than 
twice  $300,000,000. 

Three  things  are  necessary  before  any  people 
can  accumulate  great  wealth.  The  first  of  these 
is  education.  No  purely  barbarous  people  have 
ever  amassed  wealth.  China  and  India,  with 
their  millions  of  population,  are  poor,  and  will  re- 
main so  until  they  are  enlightened.  When,  there- 
fore, we  plead  for  education  for  the  negro  through 
the  school  and  the  church,  we  are  pleading  for  the 
fulfillment  of  those  conditions  which  will  insure 
him  a  basis  upon  which  he  may  build  the  super- 
structure of  solid  wealth  for  himself  and  his  pos- 
terity. As  he  becomes  more  and  more  intelligent 
his  desire  for  accumulation  will  increase.  For 
education  not  only  increases  the  capacity  for 
wealth-making,  but  it  increases  the  wants  of  men. 
As  soon  as  enlightenment  comes,  the  horizon  of 
the  mind  is  broadened,  and  man  is  no  longer  satis- 
fied, like  the  untutored  Indian  with  his  bow  and 
arrow  and  dog,  but  his  desires  widen,  and  reach 


138  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN 

out  to  lay  tribute  upon  all  things  that  may  gratify 
them. 

Go  into  the  home  of  the  educated,  cultured 
colored  gentleman,  and  there  are  beginning  to  be 
many  of  these  in  this  country.  It  is  no  longer 
the  dingy,  squalid  hut  of  former  days,  but  a  clean, 
sightly  dwelling,  with  carpets  and  pictures,  books, 
furniture,  a  well-supplied  board,  and  all  other 
comforts  and  decorations  that  make  a  neat,  mod- 
ern home.  This  is  the  outcome  of  education,  as 
all  must  admit,  and  demonstrates  how  civilization 
in  a  short  time  may  convert  the  slave  of  cen- 
turies into  an  intelligent,  property-holding  citizen. 

Now,  when  we  remember  that  this  condition 
which  is  necessary  not  only  to  the  capacity  for 
wealth-making,  but  to  the  creation  of  the  desire 
for  property,  has  existed  with  the  negro  only 
about  thirty  years,  it  is  indeed  wonderful  that  he 
has  accumulated  so  much.  The  facts  seem  to 
show  that  the  negro,  as  a  people,  when  educated, 
has  the  race  faculty  of  acquiring  property.  Why 
not?  There  is  no  real  difference  between  the 
wants  of  a  negro  and  those  of  the  white  man.  He 
has  the  same  love  of  the  beautiful  in  art  and 
architecture,  the  same  admiration  for  the  elegant 
and  tasteful  appurtenances  that  embellish  and 
decorate  a  modern  ideal  home,  the  same  love  of  the 
comfort  and  conveniences  that  make  such  a  home 
a  delightful  domicile,  as  his  white  brother.     Edu- 


A  CCUMULA  TION  OF  PR  OPER  TV.  139 

cate  him,  refine  his  tastes,  enlarge  his  aspirations, 
widen  his  mental  horizon,  and  he  will  be  found  to 
be  a  successful  wealth  producer.  If  he  has  done 
anything  toward  his  material  improvement,  it  has 
largely  come  from  the  advantages  of  enlighten- 
ment, either  directly  through  the  schools,  or  indi- 
rectly through  his  contact  with  the  intelligent 
Anglo-Saxon.  Bishop  Haygood  stated  in  1890, 
that  there  were  at  that  time  two  millions  and  a 
quarter  of  colored  people  in  this  country  who 
could  read  and  write.  Here  is  the  partial  expla- 
nation of  the  fact  that  the  material  condition  of 
the  colored  people  has  so  rapidly  improved. 

The  second  condition  of  wealth  is  industry. 
No  indolent  people  have  ever  accumulated  great 
wealth.  God  has  fixed  the  law  that  nothing 
valuable  can  be  secured  without  labor,  and  no  na- 
tion can  grow  in  an  industrial  and  commercial 
sense  without  conforming  to  this  law. 

The  charge  has  been  made  that  the  indolence 
of  the  negro  is  an  effectual  barrier  against  his  ac- 
cumulating wealth.  It  is  said  that  he  is  a  lazy, 
sluggish,  phlegmatic  being,  without  sufficient  en- 
ergy to  succeed  on  the  lines  of  material  progress. 
How  baseless  such  a  charge  in  the  light  of  his 
history  during  slavery  and  since  emancipation. 
It  was  his  labor  that  created  the  wonderful  wealth 
of  the  South  before  the  war,  which  was  at  that 
time   the  richest  section   of  the   Union.      Since 


140  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

emancipation,  he  has  shown  himself  no  sluggard. 
His  brawn  and  muscle  largely  produce  the  9,000,- 
000  bales  of  cotton  the  South  is  now  annually 
pouring  into  the  markets  of  the  world.  The 
Southern  landholder  prefers  him  for  a  tenant  to 
any  laborer  he  can  get,  and  hundreds  and  thou- 
sands of  acres  are  turned  over  to  him  for  cultiva- 
tion. Wherever  hard  work  is  to  be  done,  in  the 
field,  in  the  shop,  in  the  building  of  railways, 
roads  or  cities,  the  colored  laborer  is  in  demand. 
With  some  show  of  truth,  the  negro  may  be 
charged  with  the  want  of  proper  economy  in  the 
saving  of  the  products  of  his  labor,  but  not  with 
indolence.  Intelligence  and  experience  will  do 
much  in  working  a  reformation  in  him  in  this  re- 
gard, and  the  time  is  not  far  distant  when  his 
earnings  will  be  converted  into  real  and  perma- 
nent wealth.  • 
The  third  condition  of  a  people's  wealth  is  per- 
sonal liberty.  The  colored  people  received  politi- 
cal freedom  more  than  thirty  years  ago.  Of  course 
they  could  not  amass  property  for  themselves 
before.  But  since  their  freedom,  while  ostensibly 
and  politically  free,  the  largest  liberty  has  never 
been  theirs.  The  negro  has  never  been  permitted 
to  enter  unrestrained  into  free  and  full  competi- 
tion with  his  white  brother  in  the  South.  There 
are  many  avenues  of  employment  from  which  he 
is  shut  out.     In  railway  service  he  is  allowed  to 


A  CCUMULA  TION  OF  PR  OPER  TV.  141 

fill  no  place  above  that  of  porter  in  a  sleeping-car. 
He  is  not  employed  as  conductor,  engineer,  car  in- 
spector, passenger  or  freight  agent.  He  is  not 
wanted  as  a  clerk  in  any  mercantile  establish- 
ment, as  agent  for  insurance  companies,  as  bank 
clerk,  or  indeed  in  any  lucrative  place  in  any 
branch  of  business.  The  places  reserved  for  him 
are  the  menial  places  or  the  places  requiring  mus- 
cle and  sinew,  and  yielding  the  smaller  pay.  Even 
in  politics  the  fat  plums  go  to  his  white  neighbor, 
and  he  must  take  what  is  left.  Even  the  learned 
professions — law,  medicine,  professorships  in  col- 
leges, unless  it  be  a  school  for  colored  people — are 
practically  closed  against  him.  These  fields  of 
enterprise  are  almost  wholly  pre-empted  by  white 
men. 

Yet,  notwithstanding  the  restraints  put  upon 
him  and  the  limitation  of  his  sphere  of  activity, 
he  has  gone  on  and  amassed  more  wealth  than 
any  people  ever  similarly  situated ;  aye,  more  than 
any  people,  no  matter  how  situated,  in  the  same 
length  of  time,  who  started  with  nothing.  How 
long  these  limitations  will  continue  are  questions 
which  will  be  decided  by  another,  and  that  is, 
How  long  will  it  be  before  the  negro  shall  be  as 
highly  educated  as  his  white  brother  ? 

There  are  no  ethical  or  racial  reasons  why  the 
colored  man  may  not  reach  an  independent  posi- 
tion in  his  economic  life.     Even  the  prejudice  of 


142  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

color  and  caste  will  pass  away  when  education 
and  moral  training  have  done  their  perfect  work. 
As  yet  the  cotton  fields  and  the  sugar  and  rice 
plantations  of  the  South  have  been  almost  the  sole 
avenues  of  honorable  wealth  open  to  the  negro  01 
the  South.  Even  here  he  is  showing  himself  to 
be  a  property-maker,  a  wealth-producer.  As  he 
advances  in  intelligence,  his  theatre  of  honorable 
enterprise  will  widen  and  he  will  abundantly 
demonstrate  his  capacity  to  succeed  on  all  lines, 
even  the  highest. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

MAEEIAGE— HOW  EEGAEDED. 

PRIOR  to  1865,  there  had  never  been  a  legal 
marriage  among  the  negroes  in  the  South, 
and  hence,  before  the  law,  every  colored  person  in 
that  section  was  a  bastard.  Civil  marriage  among 
colored  people  was  not  provided  for  by  statute. 
The  negro  had  no  civil  rights  under  the  codes  of 
the  Southern  States.  It  was  often  the  case,  it  is 
true,  that  the  marriage  ceremony  was  performed 
and  thousands  of  couples  regarded  it  and  observed 
it  as  of  binding  force,  and  were  as  true  to  each 
other  as  if  they  had  been  lawfully  married.  But, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  no  marriage  was  legal  and  no 
colored  child  was  legitimate  until  after  the  war. 
Then  it  was  that  laws  were  enacted  by  all  the 
Southern  States,  making  legal  all  unions  of  ex- 
slaves  who  had  lived  together  as  reputed  man  and 
wife  prior  to  that  time,  and  providing  for  the  legal 
marriage  of  all  who  should  enter  the  state  of  wed- 
lock subsequently  to  the  passage  of  said  law.  It 
will  always  be  to  the  credit  of  the  colored  people 
that  at  most,  without  exception,  they  adhered  to 
their  relations,  illegal  though  they  had  been,  and 
accepted  gladly  the  new  law,  which  put  the  stamp 

143 


144  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

of  legitimacy  upon  their  union  and  removed  the 
brand  of  bastardy  from  the  brows  of  their  children. 

The  colored  people  generally  held  their  marriage 
(if  such  unauthorized  union  may  be  called  mar- 
riage) sacred,  even  while  they  were  yet  slaves. 
Many  instances  will  be  recalled  by  the  older  peo- 
ple of  the  South  of  the  life-long  fidelity  and  affec- 
tion which  existed  between  the  slave  and  his 
concubine — the  mother  of  his  children.  My  own 
father  and  mother  lived  together  for  over  sixty 
years.  I  am  the  fourteenth  child  of  that  union, 
and  I  can  truthfully  affirm  that  no  marriage,  how- 
ever made  sacred  by  the  sanction  of  law,  was  ever 
more  congenial  and  beautiful.  Thousands  of  like 
instances  might  be  cited  to  the  same  effect. 

Giving  my  people  due  credit  for  whatever  prog- 
ress they  have  made,  the  fact  still  remains  that 
the  marriage  relation  is  too  lightly  regarded  and 
too  easily  thrown  off  among  them  at  the  present 
day.  This  is  true  of  the  white  race  also,  espe- 
cially in  the  cities  and  the  more  densely  populated 
districts.  This  has  been  with  the  negro,  one  of 
the  incidents  which  has  resulted  from  the  sudden 
acquisition  of  freedom,  and  which  I  am  charitable 
enough  to  believe,  was  inseparable  from  the  low 
condition  of  intelligence  in  which  he  has  groveled. 
In  abject  poverty,  without  money  or  habitation, 
want  and  deprivation  have  driven  him  sometimes 
to  abandon  his  family  to  avoid  the  responsibility 


MARRIA  GE—HO  W  REGARDED.  145 

of  providing  for  them.  These  things  are  not 
offered  as  excuses,  but  as  explanatory  of  the  seem- 
ingly loose  views  which  obtain  among  many  in  re- 
gard to  the  sacred  institution  of  marriage. 

But  I  must  not  be  too  lenient,  nor  must  I 
overlook  or  misinterpret  the  facts  in  dealing 
with  this  vital  question.  Poverty  and  ignorance 
play  their  part  in  bringing  about  laxity  of  mar- 
riage vows,  but  the  want  of  a  high  sense  of  honor 
is  the  bottom  fact  in  most  cases  of  ill-fated  mar- 
riages and  ruined  homes.  Nor  is  the  blame  always 
to  be  attached  to  the  colored  husband.  I  am  not 
gallant  enough  to  mistake  the  facts  nor  blind 
enough  to  fail  to  see  them.  The  colored  women 
of  the  South,  though  not  to  the  same  extent,  must 
share  with  their  husbands  the  responsibility  for 
this  state  of  things.  It  is  often  the  case  that  by 
failing  to  be  a  "  keeper  at  home,"  and  to  preserve 
herself  chaste  and  pure,  she  forfeits  the  love  and 
respect  of  her  husband,  and  this  renders  his  mar- 
riage distasteful  and  repulsive.  If  she  is  a  woman 
of  personal  comeliness  she  is  exposed  to  the  lust 
of  the  immoral  white  man,  who  with  money  may 
lure  her,  if  she  be  susceptible  to  such  influence, 
from  the  path  of  virtue  and  honor.  These  are 
painful  facts  which  it  were  criminal  to  overlook, 
and  bear  directly  upon  the  question  of  the  marriage 
relation  of  the  colored  people  of  the  South.  At 
this  point,  as  at  all  other  points  vital  to  the  negro, 
10 


146  THE  NEGRO  AND   THE  WHITE  MAN. 

the  white  man  touches  the  social  life  of  the  colored 
people.  The  growing  looseness  of  the  marriage 
relation  among  white  people  has  its  reactionary 
effect  upon  the  imitative  mind  of  the  negro,  and 
he  follows  the  bad  as  readily  as  he  does  the  good 
example  of  his  white  neighbor  and  brother. 

These  observations  force  me  to  admit  with  sor- 
row that  there  is  not  that  high  regard  for  marriage 
among  the  colored  people  of  America  which  should 
characterize  all  self-respecting  people,  being,  as  it 
is,  at  the  foundation  of  all  social  elevation  and 
home  happiness  and  purity.  Some  reflections, 
therefore,  relating  to  reformation  on  this  line,  will 
be  apposite  and  germane. 

1st.  As  a  race  we  invoke  the  aid  of  the  civil 
law  in  the  proper  enforcement  of  the  marriage 
institution.  Husbands  should  be  compelled,  as 
the  law  provides,  to  care  for  and  maintain  their 
wives  and  children.  A  man  has  no  right  to  bring 
innocent  children  into  the  world  and  then  abandon 
them  to  the  charities  of  the  world  for  bread  and 
raiment.  The  law  should  not  tolerate  divorce  ex- 
cept for  Scriptural  cause,  and  make,  as  it  does 
now,  the  escape  from  matrimony  an  easy  process. 
The  records  of  divorce  courts  show  an  alarming 
state  of  things  both  among  white  and  colored. 
The  safety  of  society,  the  sanctity  of  marriage, 
the  integrity  of  the  home,  the  preservation  of 
virtue,  all  alike  demand  that  our  civil  law  should 


MARRIA  GE—HO  W  REGARDED.  147 

guard  the  marriage  institution  with  a  zealous  eye 
and  a  strong  hand. 

Education  on  the  line  of  the  family,  a  necessity 
of  civilization,  should  be  taught  in  our  schools  and 
preached  from  our  pulpits.  Let  our  people  know 
that  when  you  tamper  with  the  marriage  relation, 
you  are  an  enemy  to  God  and  to  society;  that 
when  you  dismantle  the  home  and  break  down  its 
altars,  you  tear  away  the  pillars  of  liberty  and 
raze  the  temple  of  civilization.  Here  it  is  that 
children  are  to  breathe  the  atmosphere  of  love,  and 
reverence,  and  truth,  and  purity,  which  mould 
them  for  the  highest  citizenship.  Here  it  is  if  the 
home  is  well  ordered  and  regulated,  the  youthful 
minds  and  hearts  are  to  get  from  wiser  heads  that 
instruction  in  righteousness  and  that  inspiration 
of  knowledge  which  are  to  prepare  them  for  use- 
fulness in  subsequent  life.  That  man,  be  he  white 
or  black,  is  a  dastard  and  a  fool  when  he  tampers 
with  the  sanctity  of  the  home  or  lends  himself  to 
the  destruction  of  the  marriage  institution,  which 
is  its  condition  and  foundation. 

Not  only  is  the  social  future  of  the  colored  race 
bound  up  in  the  marriage  relation,  but  his  religious 
life  is  also.  Aborted  marriages,  unscriptural  di- 
vorces, go  to  the  very  heart  of  the  spiritual  life  of 
a  people.  The  Bible  lays  its  greatest  stress  on  the 
home.  Christ  entered  the  homes  of  the  common 
people,  and  forever  glorified  honorable  marriage 


148  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

and  the  consecrated  home.  The  church  of  God  is 
dreaming  if  she  imagines  that  she  can  go  forth  to 
permanent  and  real  prosperity  over  the  broken 
altars  and  sundered  marriage  vows  of  her  false  and 
dishonoring  membership.  He  is  a  faithful  min- 
ister who  illustrates  in  his  own  life  his  sacred  esti- 
mate of  the  marriage  vow,  and  who  stands  like 
Nathan  of  old  for  chastity,  whether  in  the  king  or 
in  the  most  humble  peasant.  Religion  at  last  is 
the  only  prop  of  virtue,  and  in  turn  virtue  is  the 
only  prop  of  religion.  A  church  filled  with 
adulterers  and  adulteresses  is  but  a  repetition  of 
that  assemblage  against  which  the  Saviour  of  the 
world  uttered  the  most  awful  anathemas  that  ever 
fell  from  the  lips  of  God.  Hear  also  the  words  of 
the  apostle  James,  whose  fidelity  to  God  and  his 
truth  crowned  him  with  the  honor  of  martyrdom : 
"  Ye  adulterers  and  adulteresses,  know  ye  not  that 
the  friendship  of  the  world  is  enmity  with  God." 
Of  all  people  on  earth,  it  seems  to  me  the  negro 
should  stand  for  those  principles  which  are  vital  to 
religion.  Gratitude  to  God,  who  so  marvelously 
broke  from  his  feet  and  hands  the  shackles  of 
bondage,  should  ever  prompt  him  to  render  to  that 
God  the  homage  of  his  heart  and  the  devotion  of 
his  life.  If  thus  he  would  evince  his  love  and 
gratitude,  let  him  see  to  it  that  His  law  relating 
to  marriage  shall  be  observed  and  perpetuated 
forever. 


MARRIA  GE—HO  W  REGARDED.  149 

I  know  of  no  nobler  work  to  be  achieved  by  and 
for  the  negro  than  that  of  strengthening  among 
them  respect  for  the  marriage  institution.  We 
prate  of  liberty  and  boast  of  progress,  but  these 
are  a  delusion  and  a  snare  if  we  allow  the  altars 
of  home  to  be  desecrated  and  our  household  gods 
to  be  removed. 

The  colored  people  who  have  any  real  position, 
who  command  the  respect  of  those  whose  respect 
is  to  be  desired,  are  those  who  magnify  marriage 
and  regard  the  home.  Thank  God  there  are  many 
of  these  whose  homes  though  humble  are  sacred 
shrines  which  they  love  and  honor  and  protect. 
Here  they  cherish  their  wives,  rear  to  useful  life 
their  children,  and  worship  God  in  the  beauty  of 
holiness.  God  be  praised  for  such  examples  and 
illustrations  of  true  manhood  and  womanhood,  for 
such  specimens  of  Christian  character  and  citizen- 
ship. 

Let  every  good  man  among  us  help  to  create 
and  foster  a  sentiment  that  will  not  tolerate  mari- 
tal infidelity.  A  man  who  deserts  his  family,  his 
wife  and  helpless  children,  ought  to  be  placed  in 
penal  servitude  until  he  learns  to  abide  with  them 
and  give  them  the  means  of  living.  A  wife  who 
is  untrue  to  her  husband,  or  deserts  him  for  insuf- 
ficient cause,  ought  to  be  ostracised  from  good 
society,  and  thus  taught  that  no  faithless  wife  shall 
be  respected. 


150  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

I  would  stress  and  emphasize  the  views  set  forth 
in  this  chapter.  I  feel  that  they  are  of  vital  inter- 
est to  my  people.  If  we  rise  to  honorable,  respect- 
able life,  to  desirable  place  and  position  among  the 
great  family  of  peoples,  we  must,  by  every  token, 
insist  upon  and  demand  the  observance  of  the 
marriage  law  and  the  marriage  relation,  and  thus 
put  the  world  upon  notice  that  we  stand  for  social 
purity,  family  honor  and  home  preservation. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

AMALGAMATION. 

MUCH  has  been  said  and  written  on  the  sub- 
ject of  amalgamation.  It  has  been  the 
consummation  which  some  have  so  much  dreaded. 
Yet  if  its  accomplishment  is  at  last  to  be  recorded, 
it  will  be  the  work  of  that  race  which  has  so  per- 
sistently fought  it. 

Many  have  claimed  that  there  are  but  three  desti- 
nies possible  to  the  negro, viz,  extinction,  emigration 
and  amalgamation.  The  American  Indian  has  been 
pointed  to  as  a  proof  of  the  extinction  theory  by 
those  who  offer  it.  They  point  to  him  to  show 
that  no  race  which  is  not  a  cognate  race,  can 
exist  side  by  side  with  the  Anglo-Saxon.  Alas,  for 
this  theory,  the  facts  furnished  by  the  latest  sta- 
tistics show  that  the  negro,  instead  of  dying  out, 
is  increasing  with  wonderful  rapidity. 

The  emigration  theory  has  been  found  to  lack 
practicability.  The  negro  does  not  take  to  it,  in 
the  first  place,  and  if  he  did,  it  would  be  hardly 
possible  to  put  it  into  effect.  The  difficulties 
involved  in  such  a  scheme,  whether  it  be  coloniza- 
tion on  a  foreign  shore  or  in   some  neighboring 

151 


152  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

state,  are  well  nigh,  if  not  altogether,  insur- 
mountable. 

The  amalgamation  theory  is  the  only  one  of 
these  which  has  a  basis  of  probability.  While  I 
am  in  favor  of  preserving  the  racial  integrity  of 
my  people,  and  deplore  miscegenation  in  all  its 
phases,  I  am  not  blind  to  the  fact  that  amalgama- 
tion is  no  longer  a  theory,  but  well-nigh  an  accom- 
plished fact ;  and  if  the  interblending  of  the  races 
keeps  up  in  the  same  ratio  it  has  gone  on  in  the 
past,  it  will  be  totally  consummated  in  the  not 
distant  future.  The  African  negro  will  no  longer 
appear  as  a  factor  in  American  civilization,  but  in 
his  stead  will  be  the  mulatto,  the  product  of  mixed 
white  and  colored  blood. 

According  to  the  statistics  of  the  United  States, 
for  1890,  there  were  about  one  million  and  a  quar- 
ter of  mulattoes  in  the  South.  These  do  not 
include  the  multitudes  who  have  traces  of  white 
blood  in  their  veins.  Indeed,  except  in  remote 
sections,  it  is  difficult  to  find  a  negro  of  unmixed 
African  blood  in  the  entire  Southern  country. 

Thus  it  appears  that  the  dreaded  amalgamation 
is  already  partially  accomplished.  It  no  longer 
belongs  to  the  realm  of  theory ;  it  has  been  trans? 
ferred  to  the  region  of  fact.  Silently,  and  in  defi- 
ance of  law,  this  interblending  of  races  has  been 
going  on  for  years,  until,  like  leaven,  it  has  well- 
nigh  leavened  the  whole  lump. 


AMALGAMATION.  153 

These  may  be  unpleasant  and  unpalatable  truths 
both  to  the  better  class  of  white  people  and  negroes, 
but  they  are  truths  nevertheless,  and  cannot  be 
overlooked  or  set  aside  in  any  intelligent  consider- 
ation of  the  negro  question. 

Let  us  discuss  some  of  the  causes  which  have 
contributed  and  are  still  contributing  to  bring 
about  this  result. 

1st.  The  exposure  to  which  colored  girls  are 
subjected.  Protection,  afforded  by  well-ordered 
homes,  is  necessary  to  the  preservation  of  virtue 
among  any  race  or  any  people.  The  poverty  and 
ignorance  of  the  colored  people  have  made  them 
largely  a  homeless  people.  They  and  their  chil- 
dren must  toil  by  manual  methods  for  their  physi- 
cal sustenance.  At  an  early  age  colored  girls  are 
hired  out  to  help  make  the  revenues,  which  must 
be  had  for  the  support  of  the  family.  Thus  ex- 
posed and  unprotected,  they  become  the  easy  prey 
of  the  white  man,  whose  love  of  virtue  is  not 
strong  enough  to  deter  him  from  despoiling  the 
young  and  unsophisticated  colored  girl.  Exposed 
in  this  way  it  is  not  long  before  she  becomes  an 
adulteress  and  a  mother,  and  the  child  of  mixed 
blood  comes  into  the  world. 

2d.  Ignorance.  Ignorance  has  many  sins  justly 
laid  at  its  door,  none  of  which  is  blacker  than 
that  of  fornication  and  adultery.  No  ignorant 
people,  I  care  not  how  they  may  boast  of  chastity, 


154  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

can  preserve  even  the  semblance  of  virtue  when 
they  come  into  contact  with  a  more  refined  and 
intelligent  race.  Intelligence  and  money,  unre- 
strained by  moral  principle,  will  debauch  any  race 
less  intelligent  and  less  affluent.  The  American 
Indian  has  been  cited  as  an  illustration  of  an  ig- 
norant yet  virtuous  race.  It  is  a  notorious  fact 
that  whenever  he  is  civilized  enough  to  remain  in 
contact  with  the  white  man  for  any  length  of  time, 
the  result  is  a  multitude  of  mixed  breeds.  There 
must  be  intelligence  if  there  be  chastity.  Who 
but  the  cultivated  and  refined  can  properly  esti- 
mate the  value  of  purity?  Ignorant  and  untu- 
tored, the  average  colored  girl  goes  out  to  the 
tempting  and  seductive  influences  of  an  exposed 
life,  and  thousands  there  are  to  bid  for  her  ruin. 
And  so  she  is  swept  off  into  the  current  of  vice  to 
land  at  last  on  the  rocks  and  reefs  of  husbandless 
motherhood.  While  this  is  true,  on  the  other 
hand,  with  those  girls  who  have  been  properly 
trained  and  educated  in  well-guarded  and  protected 
homes,  virtue  and  chastity  are  as  highly  prized  as 
with  any  similar  class  of  any  race. 

3d.  Moral  and  religious  deprivation.  Proper 
home  protection  and  education  are  powerful  factors 
that  enter  into  the  question  of  the  personal  and 
social  purity  of  the  women  of  any  race,  but  these 
are  insufficient.  It  takes  the  additional  element 
of  religion  to  form   the  mighty  bulwark  which 


AMALGAMA  TION.  155 

guards  the  portals  to  virtue  and  personal  honor. 
Let  reverence  for  God  and  His  law  take  deep  hold 
upon  the  conscience  and  the  moral  nature,  then 
you  have  the  highest  incentive  to  right  living  that 
ever  actuated  a  human  being.  But  as  a  race  the 
colored  people  have  been  deprived  of  such  moral 
training  and  instruction.  Thirty  years  ago,  but 
five  per  cent,  of  the  race  could  read  and  write. 
They  had  no  access  to  books  or  written  instruction 
of  any  sort.  The  Bible  itself  was  a  sealed  book, 
and  the  little  instruction  they  received  was  second- 
hand. So  they  were  not  only  ignorant,  and  weak 
by  virtue  of  their  ignorance,  not  only  exposed  and 
temptible  by  reason  of  their  exposure,  but  they 
were  without  a  moral  conscience  and  were  weakest 
of  all  at  this  point,  on  account  of  the  lack  of  this 
conscience.  These  causes  are  still  operating,  though 
in  a  diminishing  degree,  and  will  continue  to  ope- 
rate so  long  as  these  conditions  exist. 

4th.  Another  cause  which  has  contributed  to 
the  amalgamation  of  the  races,  and  which  is  the 
result  of  the  causes  already  stated,  is  the  premium 
which  the  negro  himself  puts  upon  white  blood. 
I  say  it  to  the  shame  of  my  people.  Colored  girls 
in  the  South  often  prefer  to  be  the  mothers  of 
white  children.  The  white  skin  and  straight  hair 
are  possessions  to  be  admired,  and  instead  of  being 
ashamed  of  the  disgrace  of  which  such  marks  are 
the  evidence,  they  are  proud  of  them,  and  boast- 


156  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

fully  flaunt  them  to  the  world  and  before  the  eyes 
of  their  own  race.  With  such  ideas  it  seems  a 
hopeless  case.  The  girls  with  light  skins  and 
straight  hair,  too,  are  preferred  for  wives  by  col- 
ored men  and  youths  to  the  women  of  pure  Afri- 
can descent.  With  such  manifest  preference  for 
amalgamation,  and  with  such  conditions  to  for- 
ward it  on,  is  he  a  dreamer  who  predicts  its  final 
consummation  ? 

5th.  Nor  are  the  causes  underlying  this  rapid 
miscegenation  confined  to  the  conditions  which 
apply  to  the  negro  race  alone.  It  takes  two  to 
make  a  bargain  of  any  sort,  and  emphatically  one 
of  this  kind.  There  is  a  growing  indisposition  on 
the  part  of  the  young  white  men  of  the  South, 
and  as  to  that,  in  many  other  parts  of  the  world, 
to  marry  and  assume  the  responsibilities  of  fami- 
lies. With  access  to  so  many  colored  girls  they 
prefer  to  live  in  license  and  shame  rather  than  take 
upon  themselves  the  burden  of  rearing  children  in 
honorable  marriage.  The  white  man  who  does 
not  hesitate  to  use  violence  toward  a  colored  man 
for  illicit  intercourse  with  a  white  woman,  even 
with  consent,  does  not  scruple  to  live  in  adultery 
with  a  colored  woman.  Nor  is  this  adulterous  in- 
tercourse confined  to  the  young  unmarried  men  of 
the  South.  It  is  common  for  married  men  to  have 
their  colored  concubines,  and  to  raise  up  children 
by  them  in    the    same    towns    and    communities 


AMALGAMA  TION.  157 

where  their  legitimate  families  reside.  The  white 
man  is  thus  seen  to  be  the  potent  factor  in  this 
ever-growing  evil,  which  threatens  the  speedy  in- 
terblending  of  races  in  the  South.  By  reason  of 
superior  wealth  and  advantages  he  is  in  position 
to  carry  on  this  process  of  miscegenation,  and 
when  it  is  at  length  accomplished,  the  sin  of  it 
must  lie  chiefly  at  his  door. 

As  I  have  already  stated,  I  am  opposed  to  mis- 
cegenation and  all  means  which  are  used  to  ac- 
complish it,  and  would  remove,  if  I  could,  the 
conditions  which  make  it  possible. 

There  are  evils  connected  with  this  whole  ques- 
tion of  amalgamation  which  ought  to  be  stressed. 

First.  Amalgamation  under  the  laws  of  the 
Southern  States  is  possible  only  through  adultery 
and  fornication.  The  law  forbidding  the  inter- 
marriage of  the  races  renders  every  child  so  born 
a  bastard,  and  its  mother  an  adulteress.  Begot- 
ten under  such  illegitimacy,  the  child  must  go 
through  the  world  with  the  brand  of  bastardy 
upon  his  brow,  and  its  mother  must  wear  the  scar- 
let letter  upon  her  bosom.  This  is  enough  to  mar 
the  future  of  both.  The  subjective  influence  of 
such  sin  upon  the  part  of  the  parent,  and  such 
humiliation  on  the  part  of  the  child  is  deleterious 
in  a  high  degree,  as  it  operates  to  the  destruction 
of  that  fine  sense  of  virtue  and  chastity  which  are 
the   chief    qualities   of    a   self-respecting   people. 


158  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

The  whites  readily  observe  the  blighting  influence 
of  such  illegitimacy,  and  the  very  laws  of  the 
country  incorporate  the  proscription  which  the 
civilized  world  has  meted  out  to  the  unfortunate 
offspring  of  illegalized  intercourse.  Let  this  evil 
of  illegitimacy  be  widespread;  not  limited  to  indi- 
vidual instances,  as  is  the  case  with  the  white 
people,  and  the  magnitude  of  the  evil  can  be  par- 
tially calculated.  Take  the  child  born  under  such 
relations.  Branded  with  bastardy,  going  forth 
without  recognized  parentage,  he  carries  with  him 
the  consciousness  of  his  tainted  birth,  which,  if  he 
be  human,  must  wound  his  pride  and  fester  like  a 
wound  in  his  bosom.  Amalgamation  without 
legitimacy  is  a  blight  upon  both  mother  and  child, 
an  unnatural  and  a  divinely  forbidden  crime 
against  God  and  society. 

Second.  It  is  far-reaching  in  its  immoral  effects, 
cursing  not  only  those  who  are  the  direct  subjects 
of  it,  but  menacing  to  those  who  behold  it.  It  is 
a  standing  threat  to  the  virtue  of  the  race,  a  sword 
of  Damocles  which  hangs  suspended  above  the 
chastity  of  every  daughter  of  the  negro  in  the 
South.  Those  who  behold  it  are  in  danger  of  it. 
The  child  sees  (for  such  things  cannot  be  hid)  the 
illicit  relations  of  her  mother  with  a  guilty  para- 
mour, and  at  length  becomes  familiar  with  sin.  So 
the  poet  expresses  the  thought — 


A  MAL  GAMA  TION.  159 

Vice  is  a  monster  of  such  hideous  mien 
That  to  be  hated  needs  but  to  be  seen ; 
But  seen  too  oft,  familiar  with  its  face, 
We  first  endure,  then  pity,  then  embrace. 

Thus,  we  see,  that  the  demoralizing  influence  of 
unlawful  amalgamation  permeates  through  every 
strata  of  colored  society  and  saps  the  virtue  of  the 
race,  like  poison  from  the  bite  of  a  serpent,  which 
slowly  infuses  itself  through  every  part  of  the 
system,  until  it  reaches  and  stills  the  heart  itself. 

Third.  The  effect  of  amalgamation  is  to  dis- 
count and  put  at  a  disadvantage  the  negroes  of 
unmixed  blood.  Mulattoes  have  the  preference, 
even  in  the  eyes  of  the  whites,  and,  as  a  rule, 
their  light  skins  give  them  choice  of  positions  in 
the  better  employments  open  to  negro  labor  in  the 
South.  In  the  hotels,  on  the  railway  cars,  as  ser- 
vant girls,  in  the  homes  of  the  rich,  the  light  skin 
is  the  winning  card,  and  the  black-skinned  negro 
is  elbowed  off  to  more  menial  labors,  which  require 
nothing  but  sinew  and  muscle.  It  has  even  come 
to  pass  that  many  believe  the  pure  negro  incapa- 
ble of  any  high  degree  of  civilization,  and  the 
evident  progress  of  the  colored  race  since  emanci- 
pation is  attributed  by  these  to  admixture  of  white 
blood  in  their  veins.  The  white  man,  as  a  rule,  is 
not  disposed  to  reason,  like  the  Irishman  who 
heard  Fred.  Douglas  speak.  When  told  that  he 
was  a  half  negro,  he  said :  "  Well,  faith,  if  he  can 


160  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

do  so  well  as  a  half-negro,  what  could  he  do  if  he 
was  a  whole  one  ?  " 

Thus,  it  will  be  seen,  that  amalgamation  as  par- 
tially consummated  already,  and  as  in  still  further 
process  of  accomplishment,  operates  at  least,  in 
our  time,  to  the  detriment  of  the  colored  people  in 
various  ways.  If  Providence  means  by  this  pro- 
cess to  solve  the  negro  question,  it  would  be  a 
futile  task  to  oppose  it.  But  I  cannot  lend  myself 
to  the  belief  that  God  gives  his  sanction  to  evil, 
even  though  it  be  that  good  will  eventually  come 
out  of  it.  I  know  that  Providence  has  often  over- 
ruled sin  and  diverted  its  results  into  the  channels 
of  good.  The  adulterous  and  violent  conduct  of 
David,  which  ultimated  in  his  union  with  Bath- 
sheba,  had,  as  its  final  outcome,  that  genealogical 
product,  Christ,  the  Saviour  of  men ;  but  the  sin, 
from  which  such  good  came  at  last,  was  paid  for 
by  the  life-long  penitence  and  punishment  of  the 
criminal  himself.  So  if  amalgamation,  in  the 
most  hopeful  view  of  it,  means  the  ultimate  good 
of  our  race,  those  who  practice  it  now  must  pay 
for  their  sin  by  their  own  prostitution,  and  by  the 
abasement  and  moral  defilement  of  their  imme- 
diate offspring. 


CHAPTER   XVIII. 

THE  INTERMARRIAGE  QUESTION. 

THERE  is  but  one  instance  in  the  history  of 
the  world  of  race  persistence  where  inter- 
course with  other  races  was  free  and  unrestricted. 
The  Jews  have  maintained  their  ethnical  identity 
more  perfectly  than  any  other  people  who  have 
come  into  contact  with  other  peoples.  Yet  with 
ail  their  boasted  purity  of  blood,  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  admixtures  have  taken  place. 

The  African,  or  negro,  is  no  exception  to  the 
general  law  of  amalgamation.  Ethnologists  tell 
us  that  the  interblending  of  races  is  favorable  to 
the  general  progress  of  mankind.  It  is  certain 
that  the  Anglo-Saxon  is  a  composite  race.  He  has 
several  strains  in  his  blood.  First,  that  of  the 
ancient  Briton,  which  was  purely  Celtic ;  then  a 
slight  infusion  of  the  Latin  or  Roman,  which  he 
received  during  the  four  hundred  years  when 
Rome  occupied  Britain  as  a  conquered  province. 
Then  the  Teutonic  strain,  which  he  received  from 
the  German  conquest  under  Heugist  and  Horsa. 
Then  the  Scandinavian  or  Norman  infusion  of 
blood  resulting  from  the  conquest  of  England  by 
William  the  Conqueror  in  the  year  1066.  The 
ll  161 


162  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

Anglo-Saxon  race  is  thus  seen  to  be  a  composite 
race,  and  this  is  its  j:>ride  and  boast. 

It  is  true  that  the  interblending  of  races  has 
been  more  decided  among  some  tribes  or  races  than 
others.  This  is  dependent  upon  the  opportunities 
for  intercourse  with  other  people.  The  American 
Indian,  until  recently,  and  many  Asiatic  and  Afri- 
can tribes  have  kept  their  racial  integrity  for 
thousands  of  years  owing  to  their  isolated  geo- 
graphical and  commercial  situation. 

The  negro  in  America  has,  as  has  been  stated, 
been  in  process  of  amalgamation  for  all  the  years 
of  his  residence  in  this  country.  This  amalgama- 
tion has  gone  on  under  the  most  unfavorable  con- 
ditions, despite  law  and  a  public  sentiment  which 
at  least  affected  to  condemn  and  discourage  it.  It 
has  gone  on  until  the  best  and  most  discriminat- 
ing observers  in  the  South  affirm  that  there  are 
not  left  but  two  millions  of  pure  unmixed  Africans 
out  of  the  more  than  eight  millions  of  this  race  in 
this  country. 

In  the  light  of  these  facts,  is  it  rational  to  sup- 
pose that  the  American  negro  will  continue  a 
negro  ?  Is  it  not  inevitable  that  in  the  course  of 
time  he  will  lose  his  distinctive  color  and  become 
practically  a  Caucasian  ?  The  fact,  as  we  have 
shown,  is  already  partially  accomplished,  and 
every  present  indication  points  to  its  total  con- 
summation in  the  process  of  time. 


THE  INTERMARRIAGE  QUESTION  163 

I  am  and  have  ever  been  opposed  to  amalgama- 
tion. I  believe  that  the  negro  has  the  inherent 
racial  capacity  for  high  achievement — that  under 
proper  conditions  the  unmixed  African  can  reach 
the  summit  of  intellectual  and  moral  excellence. 
Some  of  the  most  splendid  specimens  of  physical 
and  intellectual  manhood  I  have  known  were  un- 
mixed Africans.  There  is  no  ethnological  reason 
why  the  negro  may  not  reach  the  highest  material 
and  intellectual  civilization  if  his  environments 
could  be  favorable. 

But  so  far  as  the  negro  in  America  is  concerned, 
it  is  impossible  now  to  make  the  experiment.  The 
unmixed  African,  as  we  have  stated,  constitutes 
but  a  small  proportion  of  the  American  negroes, 
and  the  proportion  will  grow  smaller  as  the  years 
pass  away. 

Painful  though  these  facts  may  be,  we  must 
look  them  in  the  face  and  deal  with  them  as  we 
find  them.  While  I  would  arrest  further  amalga- 
mation, I  know  such  a  hope  is  chimerical.  There 
is  almost  enough  white  blood  coursing  the  Ameri- 
can negroes'  veins  to-day  to  Caucasianize  the  whole 
race  without  further  admixture  if  that  blood  were 
generally  distributed. 

This  being  the  state  of  the  case,  many  people 
even  in  the  South,  and  at  most,  all  the  people  of 
the  North,  favor  the  undoing  of  all  legislation  for- 
bidding  the   intermarriage   of   the   races.      Mrs. 


164  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

Edna  D.  Cheney,  in  the  Mohonk  Conference  held 
at  Lake  Mohonk,  Ulster  County,  New  York,  June, 
1890,  voiced  the  almost  unanimous  sentiment  of 
the  North  when,  she  said: 

"  I  believe  that  we  are  bound  to  brush  away 
all  barriers  that  separate  the  negro  from  the  white 
man.  I  do  not  know  whether  the  sexual  amalga- 
mation of  the  races  is  desirable  or  not,  but  I  do  be- 
lieve that  every  law  forbidding  intermarriage 
should  be  swept  from  the  statutes.  If  it  is  a  law 
of  nature  that  they  should  not  mingle,  leave  it  to 
nature,  and  nature  will  work  it  out,  but  every  re- 
fusal to  legalize  marriage  is  to  give  opportunity  to 
illegal  and  irregular  unions." 

This  is  the  language  of  one  of  the  most  cultured 
and  highly  respected  women  of  the  North,  and 
as  we  have  before  stated,  is  well-nigh  the  uni- 
versal sentiment  of  the  largest  section  of  this 
country. 

While  there  may  be  some  plausibility  in  these 
views,  I  cannot  lend  myself  to  the  advocacy  of 
intermarriage  between  the  white  and  negro  race. 
I  cannot  believe  it  is  best  to  encourage  by  law 
rapid  miscegenation. 

First,  I  desire  to  preserve  as  long  as  possible 
the  integrity  of  my  race.  I  for  one  am  proud  of 
my  blood,  and  I  would  not  help  to  adulterate  it 
legally  or  otherwise.  I  would  like  to  see,  hopeless 
as  the  complete  experiment  seems  to  be,  what  my 


THE  INTERMARRIAGE  QUESTION.  165 

race  could  accomplish  under  its  present  civilizing 
environment,  at  least  without  total  absorption  into 
the  white  race.  It  is  natural  that  any  human  be- 
ing should  resist  a  process  that  means  the  extinc- 
tion of  the  race  to  which  he  belongs.  I  have  that 
pride  of  race  which  would  make  me  desire  to  pre- 
serve it  intact  and  unadulterated,  and  observe  its 
march  to  worthy  and  noble  achievement  without 
the  aid  of  foreign  blood.  I  believe  that  the  negro 
needs  only  the  uplifting  power  of  knowledge  and 
religion  to  make  him  the  peer  of  any  race.  It  is 
a  mistake  to  suppose  that  he  has  no  innate  aspira- 
tion, no  capacity  for  great  things. 

Will  the  reader  pardon  a  personal  allusion? 
When  I  was  a  child  I  was  the  property  of  Mr. 
Gabriel  Toombs,  a  brother  of  Gen.  Robert 
Toombs,  the  great  Southern  orator  and  statesman, 
one  of  the  most  splendid  specimens  of  physical 
and  intellectual  manhood  my  eyes  ever  beheld.  I 
would  frequently  see  General  Toombs,  and  Hon. 
Alexander  H.  Stephens,  and  Bishop  George  F. 
Pierce,  all  peerless  orators,  at  the  home  of  my 
owner,  and  I  always  felt  the  inspiration  of  theii 
presence.  I  was  conscious  that  there  was  some-. 
thing  in  me  that  made  me  aspire  to  be  what  they 
were.  I  felt  that  if  I  could  be  loosed  from  the 
bonds  of  slavery  and  have  the  liberty  of  an  unre- 
strained life,  I  could  rise  to  be  something  and 
somebody  in  the  world.     What  a  mistake,  there- 


166  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

fore,  is  made  when  others  of  a  different  race  sup- 
pose that  the  negro  is  incapable  of  those  high  as- 
pirations which  make  possible  a  full  rounded 
manhood.  I  for  one  would  like  to  see  the  experi- 
ment made  with  a  race  of  pure  Africans,  into 
whose  veins  had  come  no  foreign  strains  of  blood. 

But  I  am  opposed  to  intermarriage  between  the 
white  and  colored  races,  because  if  in  any  event 
or  at  any  time  it  were  desirable,  the  time  is  not 
yet,  nor  has  there  yet  developed,  so  far  as  I  can 
see,  any  good  reason  for  such  legalized  interblend- 
ing  of  the  races.  The  intense  prejudice  of  the 
whites  in  the  South  would  render  such  legalized 
miscegenation  a  source  of  constant  friction,  and  I 
believe  those  who  would  dare  to  practice  it,  even 
under  statutory  law,  would  be  in  peril  of  their  life. 
We  are  not  wanting  at  this  time  any  legislation 
that  would  tend  to  irritate  and  excite  strife.  It  is 
the  policy  of  the  colored  people,  as  well  as  their 
desire,  to  live  in  peace  and  harmony  with  their 
white  brethren,  and  in  my  judgment  nothing 
would  so  excite  the  animosity  of  our  white  neigh- 
bor as  the  agitation  of  legalized  miscegenation. 

Finally,  I  am  opposed  to  the  intermarriage  of 
the  white  and  colored  races,  because  my  own  peo- 
ple are  opposed  to  it.  The  intelligent  and  edu- 
cated people  of  this  country  are  not  seeking  inter- 
marriage. They  do  not  want  it.  They  are 
seeking  for  that   kind   and   respectful    treatment 


THE  INTERMARRIAGE  QUESTION.  167 

which  the  most  insignificant  foreigner  receives, 
provided  he  is  a  white  man.  The  law-makers, who 
are  responsible  for  the  legislation  which  discrimi- 
nates against  the  colored  man  for  fear  that  he  may 
aspire  to  intermarriage  with  the  whites,  is  doing 
him  a  great  injustice. 

I  am  opposed  to  the  agitation  of  the  whole 
question.  The  subject  is  a  delicate  one,  and  does 
not  need  to  be  discussed,  and  I  allude  to  it  only  to 
oppose  any  radical  views  that  may  be  entertained 
by  the  people  of  my  own  color.  This,  like  all 
other  questions,  will  solve  itself  in  the  run  of  the 
years.  I  have  considered  it  as  delicately  as  possi- 
ble, and  would  offend  no  one  of  either  race  by  the 
views  I  have  advanced. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

THE  POLITICAL  QUESTION  AND  THE  NEGRO. 

THE  negro  population  of  this  country  now 
numbers  more  than  8,000,000.  Of  these 
about  1,500,000  are  voters.  If  that  vote  could  be 
fairly  registered  it  would  be  a  telling  factor  in  the 
National  and  State  elections  of  this  country. 

Many  have  inquired  why  it  is  that  the  negro 
has  always  affiliated  with  the  Republican  party. 
The  question  may  be  answered  in  a  few  words. 
It  is  because  the  Republican  party  originated  the 
anti-slavery  agitation,  and  finally  secured  the  free- 
dom of  the  negro.  The  negro  would  have  been  an 
ingrate,  and  deserving  the  contempt  of  all  men, 
had  he  not  joined  his  political  friends  the  moment 
he  was  set  free.  The  names  of  Lincoln,  Grant, 
Sumner,  Thaddeus  Stevens,  Chief  Justice  Chase, 
Colfax,  and  those  of  all  the  great  Republican  lead- 
ers of  the  North,  were  magic  names  to  him.  They 
were  associated  in  his  mind  with  all  that  was  dear 
to  him  in  freedom,  and  not  to  have  followed  their 
leadership,  would  have  been  an  unnatural  and  un- 
grateful course  of  conduct.  These  men  were  the 
heroes  that  he  worshipped,  the  benefactors  to 
whom  he  paid  homage  and  reverence,  and  he  fol- 

168 


POLITICAL  QUESTION  AND  THE  NEGRO.      169 

lowed  their  lead  as  naturally  as  the  round-heads 
followed  Cromwell  or  the  French  revolutionists 
Napoleon. 

If  there  had  been  any  hope  of  the  political  alli- 
ance of  the  negro  with  the  South,  after  the  war, 
that  hope  was  dispelled  when  the  whites  of  the 
South  antagonized  all  national  legislation  looking 
to  his  enfranchisement  and  to  his  elevation  to  citi- 
zenship. They  not  only  opposed  it,  but  with  a 
rancor  and  violence  that  were  so  bitter  and  invet- 
erate that  it  took  the  form  of  cruelty  towards 
the  negro,  and  proscription  and  ostracism  to  the 
few  whites  in  the  South  who  favored  it.  The 
negro  would  have  been  less  than  human  had  he 
joined  with  those  he  deemed  the  enemies  of  his 
advancement,  and  cast  his  vote  to  defeat  his  own 
promotion  and  amelioration.  The  Southern 
whites,  who  are  mostly  Democrats,  should  not 
judge  harshly  and  unkindly  the  colored  people  for 
this  choice  of  political  company.  Had  they  been 
similarly  situated,  they  would  have  acted  likewise. 
Such  a  choice  was  the  only  natural  and  reason- 
able one. 

In  this  political  attitude  the  Southern  negroes 
have  been  consistent  and  persistent.  No  people 
ever  remained  truer  to  their  political  convictions 
and  preferences  than  have  they.  It  is  true  to- 
day, as  it  has  been  all  along,  that  they  are  Repub- 
licans, and  wherever  there  has  been  any  defection 


170  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

at  all,  or  any  apparent  departure  from  their  alle- 
giance to  this  party,  it  has  been  temporary  and 
superficial.  At  bottom  the  negro  is  and  has  been 
a  Republican. 

The  solidarity  of  the  whites  of  the  South,  in 
my  judgment,  has  been  unfortunate  both  for  the 
whites  and  the  negroes.  The  whites  have  been 
associated  with  the  defeated  party  ever  since  the 
war,  save  during  the  two  terms  of  Mr.  Cleveland's 
administration.  As  a  result,  the  South  has  re- 
ceived less  than  its  share  of  the  national  appropri- 
ations, and  the  millions  set  apart  by  Congress  for 
internal  improvements  have  gone  for  the  most 
part  to  enrich  the  East  and  West.  Had  the  sec- 
tional feeling  engendered  and  kept  alive  by  the 
attitude  of  the  South,  and  its  virulent  and  un- 
compromising animosity  toward  the  Republican 
party  never  been,  her  people  would  have  shared 
more  equally  the  official  favors  of  the  government, 
and  her  recuperation  from  the  desolations  of  war 
have  been  instant  and  rapid.  For  these  reasons 
I  can  but  believe  that  the  South  has  been  unwise 
in  her  attitude  of  hostility  to  the  Republican 
party,  which  advocated  the  immediate  acceptance 
of  the  situation  after  the  war,  and  progress  on  the 
lines  of  the  Thirteenth,  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth 
amendments  to  the  Constitution.  The  Republican 
party  was  composed  of  the  better  class  of  citizens 
at  the  North;    they  were  the  people  of  that  sec- 


POLITICAL  QUESTION  AND  THE  NEGRO.      171 

tion  who  had  most  of  its  wealth  and  intelligence, 
and  who,  had  they  been  conciliated  and  consorted 
with,  instead  of  the  rough  and  less  respectable 
elements,  who  constitute  the  Democratic  party  of 
the  North,  would  have  been  more  able  to  extend 
help  to  the  poverty-stricken  South. 

The  solidarity  of  the  South  likewise  has  been 
unfortunate  for  the  colored  people.  It  has  been 
as  an  impassable  and  impenetrable  wall  dividing 
them  from  their  white  neighbors,  when  they 
should  have  been  united  and  harmonious.  This 
political  solidarity  of  the  Southern  whites  has 
been  the  cause  of  the  friction  which  has  resulted 
in  most  of  the  strife  and  bloodshed  that  has 
marred  the  history  of  the  Southern  States  since 
the  war.  Had  the  negro  been  in  political  unity 
with  a  large  and  respectable  element  of  the 
Southern  whites,  the  bloody  annals  of  Ku  Klux 
times  and  the  disgraceful  methods  of  ballot-box 
stuffing  would  not  be  a  part  of  that  history.  Po- 
litical differences  have  created  the  chasm  between 
the  races,  and  are  responsible,  even  more  than 
race  prejudices,  for  the  deeds  of  violence  com- 
mitted in  the  South  since  the  war. 

Thus  the  political  alienation  of  the  races  in  the 
South  has  been  fraught  with  evil  to  both  races. 
A  divided  house,  not  on  color  lines,  but  on  eco- 
nomic lines,  would  have  been  a  blessing,  but  when 
that  division  has  been  strictly  the  outgrowth  of 


172  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

color,  and  the  social  and  political  prejudices  inci- 
dent to  that  issue,  it  has  been  a  great  evil. 

The  tendency  and  drift  of  things  in  the  South 
is  now,  however,  toward  the  breaking  up  of  old 
party  associations  and  affiliations.  New  issues 
are  arising,  and  old  political  parties  are  disinte- 
grating and  realigning  themselves.  Thousands  of 
Democrats  are  beginning  to  let  loose  their  grip  on 
the  old  party  they  have  served  so  long,  and  to  ex- 
ercise their  individual  preferences  and  convictions 
in  the  matter  of  suffrage.  The  great  economic 
questions  and  the  far-reaching  financial  issues  are 
pressing  to  the  front  for  adjudication  and  settle- 
ment, and  the  negroes,  as  well  as  the  whites,  are 
beginning  to  see  the  vital  interest  they  have  in 
the  right  solution  of  these  grave  matters,  and  it 
may  not  be  many  years  before  the  whites  and  the 
negroes  will  vote  side  by  side  in  the  same  political 
parties.  As  yet  the  negro  has  shown  no  disposi- 
tion to  leave  his  party  on  national  issues.  On 
merely  local  and  State  issues  he  frequently  unites 
with  his  white  neighbor,  and  it  is  noticeable  that 
in  elections  of  this  kind  there  is  never  any  suspi- 
cion of  a  false  count. 

I  for  one  would  hail  the  coming  of  the  day  when 
the  acrimony  and  partisanship  of  the  past  would 
be  forgotten  and  buried.  I  recognize  the  fact  that 
the  destiny  of  the  negro  race  is  bound  up  with 
that  of  the  Southern  whites  for  the  present,  if  not 


POLITICAL  QUESTION  AND  THE  NEGRO.       173 

for  all  time.  What  affects  the  negro  affects  the 
whites.  Both  alike  are  interested  in  good  govern- 
ment and  clean  politics.  With  the  decay  of  polit- 
ical prejudices  and  antagonisms,  one  of  the  most 
intricate  features  of  what  is  called  the  "negro 
problem"  will  be  solved.  A  better  feeling  would 
exist,  begotten  by  common  political  interests,  and 
confidence  and  peace  would  reign  where  distrust 
and  often  violence  now  abound. 

Whenever  the  South  will  agree  that  the  negro 
shall  deposit  his  ballot  untrammelled  and  unmo- 
lested, then  the  first  step  toward  political  harmony 
shall  have  been  taken.  The  whites  of  the  South 
should  not  and  ought  not  to  expect  political  peace 
on  such  terms.  Give  the  negro  his  ballot  and  he 
will  exercise  it  for  and  not  against  the  interests  of 
his  own  section. 

The  large  vote  which  was  given  to  Mr.  McKin- 
ley  in  the  last  Presidential  election  by  Southern 
white  people  is  a  straw  which  indicates  the  direc- 
tion the  political  winds  are  taking.  Thousands 
more  were  in  sympathy  with  the  issues  and  prin- 
ciples for  which  the  Republican  party  stood  in  that 
election  who  never  voted  at  all.  This  shows  that 
there  are  forces  at  work  to  break  up  the  solidarity 
of  the  South,  that  the  party  shibboleth  can  no 
longer  be  made  the  test  of  patriotism  and  genuine 
Southern  spirit  and  the  rallying  cry  of  the  South- 
ern white  masses.     It  shows  that  for  the  future 


174  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN 

there  is  a  large  element  at  the  South  who  intend 
to  vote  their  convictions  regardless  of  past  party 
affiliations. 

As  for  the  negro,  in  the  division  which  is  inev- 
itably to  ensue,  he  will  choose  the  company  of  the 
better  class  of  whites.  The  populists  of  the  South, 
representing  the  least  intelligent  element  of  the 
white  people,  have  failed,  and  will  continue  to  fail, 
to  enlist  the  sympathy  and  co-operation  of  the  ne- 
gro. It  is  one  characteristic  of  the  negro  to  like 
the  association  of  the  intelligent  and  self-respect- 
ing classes.  Ignorant  as  he  often  is,  he  still  re- 
fuses to  herd  with  the  ignorant  and  vicious  whites, 
preferring  to  follow  and  imitate  the  better  and 
more  enlightened  classes.  He  recognizes  the  fact 
that  his  most  powerful  and  helpful  allies  are  to  be 
found  among  the  strong,  conservative  and  liberal- 
minded  white  men  of  the  South,  and  not  with  the 
ignorant,  irresponsible  and  unreliable  rabble. 

Whatever  others  may  say  against  Mr.  Cleveland, 
the  ex-President,  the  colored  people  of  this  coun- 
try entertain  the  highest  respect  for  him  as  a  citi- 
zen, a  man,  and  a  statesman.  He  was  broad 
enough  to  rise  above  the  "  color  line  "  and  to  ap- 
point to  responsible  positions  some  worthy  colored 
men.  It  took  some  backbone  to  resist  the  popular 
prejudice  against  such  appointments,  but  he  had 
nerve  enough  to  do  so  because  he  thought  it  was 
the  just  and  right  thing  to  do.     When  the  history 


POLITICAL  QUESTION  AND  THE  NEGRO      175 

of  this  country  shall  be  plainly  and  impartially 
written,  he  will  occupy  a  position  second  only  to 
Andrew  Jackson  as  an  uncompromising  and  un- 
flinching defender  of  the  right  as  he  was  permitted 
to  see  it. 

As  to  the  political  future  of  the  colored  race  I 
believe  that  this,  like  all  other  questions  which 
are  vital  to  him,  will  be  determined  by  the  factors 
of  religion  and  education.  When  by  the  slow  but 
potent  processes  of  these  mighty  agencies  he  shall 
be  qualified  for  the  best  and  most  intelligent  citi- 
zenship, then  he  will  assert  himself  with  power, 
and  contribute  his  share  in  controlling  and  shap- 
ing the  legislation  of  the  country.  Not  only  so, 
but  he  will  add  his  increment  of  influence  to  the 
industrial,  commercial  and  moral  uplift  of  the 
whole  people,  and  share  in  the  glory  and  greatness 
of  Anglo-Saxon  progress  and  civilization. 

In  the  meantime  I  would  appeal  to  our  brother 
in  white  to  deal  with  him  in  the  spirit  of  fairness, 
throw  no  obstructions  in  the  way  of  his  suffrage, 
convince  him  that  you  are  his  friend  and  not  his 
foe,  let  him  exercise  the  right  of  life,  liberty  and 
property  as  the  Constitution  directs,  and  then  he 
will  not  distrust  but  confide  in  you  as  his  ally  and 
brother.  He  has  no  desire  to  injure  the  white 
man,  he  does  not  wish  to  abridge  the  rights  and 
privileges  of  his  white  neighbor.  All  he  asks  is 
that  you  give  him  equal  rights  before  the  law, 


176  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN 

treat  him  as  a  citizen  and  a  freeman,  and  in  turn 
he  will  love  and  trust  you,  stand  shoulder  to 
shoulder  with  you,  and  join  you  in  the  march  to 
national  greatness  and  honor. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

THE  HOME-LIFE  OF  THE  NEGKO. 

IN  the  years  of  slavery  the  negro  dwelt  usually 
in  a  cabin  made  of  logs.  These  cabins  were 
generally  close  together  in  the  plantation-yard- 
They  were  rude  in  construction,  but  as  the  climate 
was  mild  and  fire-wood  plentiful,  there  was  very 
little  suffering  from  cold. 

It  was  impossible  in  such  homes  to  cultivate  the 
domestic  side  of  life — to  develop  the  home-loving 
and  home-adorning  spirit.  A  plain  wooden  table, 
a  rude  bed  and  a  few  benches,  and  sometimes 
plain  split-bottomed  chairs,  were  the  articles  of 
furniture  usually  found  in  the  cabin  of  the  South- 
ern slave. 

But  since  the  advent  of  freedom,  and  the  gen- 
eral improvement  in  the  intelligence  of  the  col- 
ored people,  consequent  thereupon,  their  home-life 
has  been  greatly  bettered,  and  among  the  more 
intelligent  and  thrifty  of  the  race  may  be  found 
homes  exhibiting  every  evidence  of  refinement 
and  neatness  and  comfort.  There  are,  of  course, 
different  degrees  of  refinement  among  the  well-to- 
do  colored  people  just  as  there  is  among  the 
whites.  For,  after  all,  the  qualities  of  elegance 
12  177 


178  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

and  neatness  reside  more  in  individuals  than  they 
do  in  races. 

The  home-life  of  the  well-to-do  Southern  negro 
is  improving  every  day.  Music,  which  is  an  art 
the  negro  naturally  acquires,  is  a  characteristic 
feature  in  his  home.  The  natural  melody  of  his 
voice  has  been  admitted  on  all  hands,  and  in 
thousands  of  homes  culture  is  giving  to  his  songs 
a  bewitching  sweetness  which  is  charming  and 
beautiful.  He  is  beginning  to  learn  the  use  of 
better  instruments  than  the  Jewsharp  and  the 
banjo.  The  men  and  women  quickly  learn  to  play 
upon  the  guitar  and  the  mandolin,  and  even  the 
piano.  Music  has  always  played  its  part  in  the 
civilizing  and  humanizing  of  men.  Among  the 
Greeks  it  was  cultivated  as  an  art  with  the  same 
assiduity  as  painting,  sculpture  and  architecture. 
Orpheus  lives  in  Greek  mythology,  and  Apollo, 
with  his  lute,  held  high  place  among  the  honored 
divinities.  Hebrew  melody  is  immortal  in  the 
songs  of  Miriam  and  Deborah  and  the  psalms  of 
David  and  Asaph.  The  negro,  through  music,  is 
taking  into  his  home-life  the  softening,  refining 
and  uplifting  power  of  melody.  Sacred  music  he 
especially  cultivates,  and  the  beautiful  and  weird 
songs  one  may  hear  in  almost  any  congregation  of 
colored  people  give  to  their  worship  a  peculiar 
and  powerful  impressiveness. 

The  more  intelligent  of  the  negroes  are  begin- 


THE  HOME-LIFE  OF  THE  NEGRO.  179 

ning,  too,  to  recognize  the  influence  of  art  as  a 
factor  in  the  improvement  of  their  homes.  They 
are  beginning  to  understand  its  educative  effect, 
its  refining  and  elevating  tendency.  No  less  than 
music,  art  has  its  office  in  the  civilization  of  a 
race.  The  paintings  of  Raphael,  Murillo,  Titan 
and  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  have  accomplished 
almost  as  much  for  men  as  literature,  and  wher- 
ever we  see  art  stressed  in  the  home  we  may  be 
sure  that  refinement  of  some  sort  characterizes  its 
inmates.  I  am,  by  reason  of  my  official  relation 
to  my  church,  thrown  constantly  into  the  homes 
of  the  well-to-do  of  my  race.  I  have  been  aston- 
ished and  gratified  by  the  exhibition  of  pictures, 
bric-a-brac  and  ornamentations  of  various  kinds 
which  adorn  these  homes.  This  shows  that  the 
minds  of  the  better  informed  of  my  race  have 
passed  out  of  the  stage  of  the  semi-barbarism  in 
which  emancipation  found  them,  and  are  opening 
to  the  susceptibilities  of  civilized  life.  At  the  Ex- 
position held  in  Atlanta,  Ga.,  in  1895,  the  build- 
ing, devoted  to  the  exhibition  of  the  handiwork 
of  the  negro,  contained  many  beautiful  specimens 
of  paintings  and  hundreds  of  articles  made  by 
their  hands,  which  showed  wonderful  artistic  pro- 
ficiency. This  was  considered  marvellous  when 
it  was  remembered  that  only  thirty  years  of  free- 
dom have  been  theirs. 

Another  hopeful  sign  in  the  home  life  of  the  ne- 


180  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

gro  is  seen  in  the  number  of  libraries  these  homes 
contain.  Since  they  have  learned  to  read,  many 
of  them  are  accumulating  well-selected  books. 
Good  books,  next  to  association  with  the  pure  and 
cultured,  are  the  most  potent  of  all  civilizing 
agencies.  The  Bible,  the  book  of  books,  is  in 
every  well-to-do  home  in  the  South,  and,  with  it, 
choice  specimens  of  literature  both  religious  and 
secular.  The  young  generation  are  being  taught 
to  read  these  choice  productions  of  the  learned 
and  pious,  and  are  slowly  but  surely  imbibing  high 
thoughts  and  noble  aspirations  from  them.  It  has 
been  said  that  if  you  can  get  people  to  read,  you 
can  safely  predict  their  civilization.  But  never 
until  books  are  placed  in  the  homes  of  the  people 
will  they  become  a  reading  people.  Our  people 
have  made  a  gratifying  start  in  this  direction. 
The  leading  men  of  our  race  need  to  stress  more 
and  more  the  necessity  of  home  libraries,  which 
will  furnish  the  opportunity  for  knowledge  to  our 
people  they  so  much  need.  They  should  assist, 
too,  in  judiciously  selecting  for  the  families  with 
whom  they  are  acquainted,  the  books  that  are  to 
occupy  a  place  upon  the  shelves  of  these  home 
libraries. 

We  find  further  in  the  home  life  of  our  intelli- 
gent colored  j)eople,  a  family-loving  sentiment. 
The  negro  mother  and  father,  if  they  have  had 
any    training   at   all,   love    their   children.      The 


THE  HOME-LIFE  OF  THE  NEGRO.  181 

brutal  treatment  of  their  offspring,  which,  we  are 
free  to  admit,  has  been  common  in  the  South,  is 
confined,  for  the  most  part,  to  the  ignorant  and 
the  vicious  members  of  my  race.  I  have  been  in 
thousands  of  homes  where  the  amenities  and  ur- 
banities of  life  were  practiced  by  the  different 
members  of  the  family  with  uniform  and  beauti- 
ful consistency.  I  have  known  colored  mothers 
to  make  every  sacrifice  to  educate  their  children, 
and  colored  fathers  to  toil  until  they  were  worn 
out  to  feed  and  clothe  them.  It  is  a  slander  upon 
the  negro  race  to  charge  them  with  a  want  of 
proper  affection  for  their  children.  This  is  true 
only  of  the  most  ignorant  and  immoral  of  them. 
And  this  is  true  also  of  the  ignorant  and  vicious 
of  every  race.  No  home  life,  among  any  people, 
is  more  mixed  with  the  "milk  of  human  kind- 
ness," more  characterized  by  the  virtues  of  for- 
bearance, gentleness  and  politeness  than  the  homes 
of  the  better  class  of  Southern  negroes. 

They  are  attentive  to  their  sick  and  show  often 
to  the  afflicted  in  their  households  a  tender  con- 
sideration that  is  admirable  and  beautiful.  No 
more  gentle,  soothing,  sympathizing  nurses  can  be 
found  in  the  world  than  the  best  type  of  our  col- 
ored women.  It  may  be  that  often,  through  ig- 
norance, they  fail  to  use  the  proper  hygienic 
means  for  the  health  of  their  children,  but  it  is  a 
rare  case  where  the  children  of  intelligent  colored 


182  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

parents  suffer  for  the  lack  of  devoted  attention. 
Another  thing  that  illustrates  the  natural  kindness 
of  the  negro  race  is  the  care  which  they  take  of  the 
children  of  their  deceased  kinspeople.  Almost 
every  colored  family  has  in  it  orphan  children.  I 
have  known  many  of  them  to  take  the  children  of 
their  dead  sisters  and  brothers,  more  of  them  than 
they  had  of  their  own,  and  rear  them  with  the 
same  care  as  if  they  had  been  their  own  children. 
Perhaps  this  is  one  reason  why  there  is  so  little 
pauperism  among  them.  There  are  fewer  beggars 
and  tramps  among  this  race  than  perhaps  among 
any  other,  except  it  be  the  Jews. 

The  negro  is  naturally  mirthful.  Though  his 
home  be  humble,  he  brightens  it  with  laughter 
and  good  cheer.  Their  happy  voices  make  the 
log  cabins  of  the  South  resound  with  merriment, 
and  often  with  boisterous  hilarity.  They  are  not 
given  to  the  moody  reverie,  the  quiet,  tranquil  ex- 
istence characteristic  of  the  whites.  They  love 
to  talk  and  to  jest,  to  dance  and  to  sing,  to  frolic 
and  to  play,  and  it  is  the  rarest  sight  imaginable 
to  see  them  with  sad  countenances.  Though  their 
fare  be  scanty  and  their  garments  worn  and 
threadbare,  they  are  as  well  contented  as  the  rich 
in  their  palaces  of  splendor  and  plenty.  Hence 
their  home  life,  as  a  rule,  is  bright  and  cheery. 
No  people  ever  bore  up  under  such  hardships  with 
equal  contentment  and  resignation.    The  Israelites 


THE  HOME-LIFE  OF  THE  NEGRO.  183 

murmured  against  God  in  the  midst  of  the  weari- 
ness and  woes  of  the  wilderness.  Not  so  the 
negro.  With  happy  heart  he  thanks  his  Maker 
for  all  that  comes  and  goes,  smiling  through  pov- 
erty and  oppression  to  whatever  lot  his  destiny 
may  appoint. 

In  their  home  life  the  more  intelligent  of  my 
race  are  beginning  to  pay  attention  to  the  culinary 
art,  and  to  vary  their  diet  both  as  to  the  food 
itself  and  the  manner  of  preparing  it.  In  former 
times  they  cooked  their  bread,  made  of  Indian 
corn,  in  the  ashes,  and  fried  their  bacon  in  a  skil- 
let. But  they  are  gradually  laying  aside  the 
skillet  and  the  ash-bed  for  the  cooking-stove  and 
the  range,  and  the  colored  housewives  are  becom- 
ing experts  in  the  culinary  art.  Nothing  of  a  ma- 
terial nature  is  more  civilizing  than  proper  diet, 
properly  served.  It  is  around  the  well-prepared 
board  that  a  people  learn  the  manners  of  civilized 
life,  and  get  the  food  which  is  necessary  to  supply 
the  brain  with  thought-making  power.  I  rejoice 
to  see  such  marked  advance  among  my  people  in 
this  regard,  and  see  in  it  one  of  the  signs  of  real 
improvement  in  their  material  and  social  condition. 

As  to  the  social  life  of  the  negroes  it  may  be 
said  that  it  has  not  yet  taken  definite  shape.  In 
the  country  districts  there  is  no  caste.  They  are 
on  terms  of  equality  and  mingle  indiscriminately. 
But  there  is  beginning  to  assert  itself  a  decided 


184  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN 

disposition  to  ostracize  from  the  better  element  of 
negroes  those  who  are  grossly  lacking  in  virtue 
and  decency.  Our  people  have  been  too  loose  in 
their  social  relations;  they  have  not  sufficiently 
emphasized  their  condemnation  of  vice  and  im- 
purity by  relegating  to  the  rear  that  class  who  are 
flagrantly  vicious  and  impure.  I  recognize  the 
fact  that  we  need  to  create  a  stronger  sentiment 
against  vice  by  refusing  to  tolerate  in  our  best 
social  life  those  who  are  unworthy  and  corrupt. 
There  is  a  very  observable  tendency  among  what 
are  called  the  mulattoes  to  withdraw  themselves 
from  the  dark-skinned  negroes  and  set  up  for 
themselves  a  distinct  social  class.  This  has  its 
bearing  upon  the  home  life  of  our  race,  often  de- 
termining the  matter  of  hospitality  and  marriage. 
It  is  dividing  the  negroes  as  nothing  else  does,  and 
is  threatening,  helped  as  it  is  by  constant  miscege- 
nation with  the  white  race,  to  obliterate  the  dark- 
skinned  negro. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

THE  EELIGION  OF  THE  NEGKO. 

IT  has  been  said  that  man  is  a  religious  animal. 
It  is  pre-eminently  true  of  the  negro.  What- 
ever may  be  the  personal  character  of  an  indi- 
vidual of  this  race,  he  never  questions  the  exist- 
ence of  a  Supreme  Being,  or  doubts  the  existence 
of  a  future  state  of  rewards  and  punishment. 

His  religion  may  be  defective  in  its  practical  re- 
lation to  the  principles  of  right  conduct  and  living, 
but  it  is  always  sound  as  to  the  faith  which  it 
inspires  in  God  and  revelation.  Infidelity  has 
never  taken  any  hold  on  my  people.  In  almost 
every  community  there  is  a  church  building,  rude 
though  some  of  them  may  be,  where  they  assem- 
ble to  worship  God.  An  atheist  or  an  infidel  is  a 
rare  specimen,  and  excites  as  much  curiosity  as  a 
bear  escaped  from  some  traveling  menagerie. 

The  worship  of  the  negro  is  one  of  the  simplest 
sort.  He  has  no  appreciation  of  elaborate  rituals, 
of  services  consisting  of  forms  and  ceremonies. 
Hence,  the  great  mass  of  the  colored  race  have 
united  either  with  the  Methodist  or  Baptist 
Churches.      These   churches   have   the    simplest, 

185 


186  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

least  complicated  forms  of  church  service,  and  the 
negro  naturally  gravitates  to  them. 

The  emotional  nature  is  highly  developed  in 
the  negro.  He  is  easily  and  powerfully  impressed 
by  all  that  appeals  to  his  sympathies  and  affec- 
tions. This  accounts  for  the  fact  that  there  are 
so  many  natural  orators  among  them.  Perhaps 
no  race  has  developed  so  many  eloquent  speakers 
as  the  colored  people  of  the  South  have  produced 
in  the  last  thirty  years.  For  the  most  part  the 
talent  of  the  negro  has  sought  the  pulpit  for  its 
expression,  and  many  wonderfully  eloquent  men 
have  adorned  the  pulpits  of  the  Methodist  and 
Baptist  churches  in  the  South.  These  great  lead- 
ers, under  God,  have  built  up  two  of  the  most 
wonderful  branches  of  the  Christian  Church  in  all 
this  land  of  ours. 

Speaking  as  a  representative  of  my  own  church, 
the  African  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  and 
viewing  the  question  from  the  standpoint  of  my 
own  experience  and  observation,  I  would  say  that 
the  admirable  characteristics  of  the  religion  of  the 
negro  are  : 

First.  Its  simple  unquestioning  faith.  Indeed, 
the  faith  element  is  so  strong  that  often,  when  not 
intelligently  directed,  it  runs  into  superstition.  I 
have  never  known  of  but  one  trial  for  heresy 
among  the  ministry  or  the  laity  of  my  church. 
They  receive,  with  absolute  trust,  the  doctrines  of 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  NEGRO.  187 

the  Bible  as  formulated  by  the  churches  to  which 
they  adhere,  and  though  in  practice  they  are  often 
lax  and  flagrantly  immoral,  in  their  theory  of  re- 
ligion, they  are  orthodox  and  sound.  This  faith 
is  not  the  outcome  of  ignorance  alone,  as  many 
have  sneeringly  suggested.  There  are  many  schol- 
arly men  and  women  among  us  in  the  schools  and 
the  pulpit  who  manifest  the  same  simple  and 
child-like  faith.  The  truth  is,  the  faith  faculty  is 
strong  in  the  negro,  and  religion  is  a  necessity  of  his 
nature. 

Another  characteristic  of  the  religion  of  the 
negro  is  its  fervency.  I  have  already  spoken  of 
the  strength  of  his  emotional  nature,  but  its  mani- 
festation in  his  religious  life  gives  it  its  most  dis- 
tinctive expression.  He  loves  the  moving,  stirring 
appeal,  and  revels  in  the  full  tide  of  emotional 
feeling.  He  has  no  toleration  for  the  coldly  intel- 
lectual discourse,  and  the  quiet,  formal  worship. 
He  likes  to  be  moved  to  tears,  to  be  touched 
deeply  in  his  emotions,  to  be  swept  off  his  feet  by 
the  thrilling,  the  pathetic,  the  awe-inspiring.  It 
is  often  true,  no  doubt,  that  in  this  unrestrained 
vent  of  feeling  he  swings  to  the  extreme,  and 
sometimes  mistakes  mere  physical  excitement  for 
divine  unction  ;  but  it  were  better  for  him  to  err  in 
this  direction,  than  to  choose  a  cold,  icy,  formal 
mode  of  worship,  which  so  deadens  all  religious  life 
and  delight,  as  to  destroy  its  power  over  him  and  his 


188  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

pleasure  in  it.  Of  the  two  extremes — dead  for- 
malism and  a  mere  religious  emotionalism — I 
should  prefer  the  latter,  worthless  though  both 
may  be.  But  mere  physical  emotion  is  not  the 
whole  of  the  negro's  religion.  Beneath  his  deep 
feelings  there  are  often  a  spiritual  and  a  divine 
energy  and  power,  which  take  hold  upon  the  heart 
and  life,  and  give  them  uplift  and  inspiration  and 
purity.  I,  for  one,  am  proud  of  the  emotional 
warmth  and  susceptibility  of  my  people.  I  like 
to  see  it  in  the  beaming  faces,  to  hear  it  in  the 
transporting,  thrilling  songs,  to  feel  it  in  the  fer- 
vent, hearty  hand-shake  of  my  race.  So  long  as 
the  negro  is  true  to  his  native  endowment  and 
temperament  he  will  ever  evince  emotion  in  his 
religious  worship. 

Another  marked  characteristic  of  the  religion  of 
the  negro  is  its  benevolence.  I  do  not  believe  any 
people  have  ever  given  as  much,  with  so  little  of 
wealth  to  give  from,  as  the  colored  people  of 
America.  It  is  marvelous  what  they  have  given 
for  the  erection  of  church  edifices  and  the  support 
of  their  church  institutions  since  they  were  made 
free  thirty-two  years  ago.  If  written  out,  it  would 
make  a  chapter  of  self-sacrifice  and  heroism  with- 
out a  parallel  in  the  history  of  mankind.  From 
their  small  earnings  they  set  apart  a  certain  sum, 
and  this  is  given  Sabbath  after  Sabbath  with  a 
regularity  that  is  as  beautiful  as  it  is  constant. 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  NEGRO.  189 

When  men  give  to  a  cause,  and  keep  giving  with 
a  devotion  that  never  tires,  they  at  least  show 
their  love  for  that  cause  and  the  value  they  put 
upon  it.  Judged  by  this  rule,  the  negro  puts  the 
highest  estimate  upon  his  religion  and  cherishes  it 
as  he  does  nothing  else  in  this  world.  This  benevo- 
lence takes  many  directions.  Christian  negroes 
are  proverbially  hospitable.  They  will  share  their 
last  crust  of  bread  with  their  needy  and  helpless 
brethren.  They  open  their  hearts  and  homes  for 
the  entertainment  of  Christian  workers  and  min- 
isters, feeling  it  a  proud  privilege  to  have  in  their 
houses  the  servants  of  the  Lord.  The  negro  has 
no  element  of  selfishness  nor  stinginess  in  his  na- 
ture, and  his  record  of  charity  and  benevolent  giv- 
ing proves  it  without  question. 

The  African  Methodist  Church  alone  contributed 
for  all  purposes  during  last  year,  1896,  nearly  two 
millions  of  dollars.  And  other  colored  churches 
have  shown  like  liberality.  Indeed,  it  is  one  of 
the  marvelous  facts  of  this  age  that  the  negro,  out 
of  his  poverty,  has  given  so  much  to  the  cause 
which  is  nearest  of  all  to  his  heart. 

I  am  not  so  blind  as  not  to  see  that  the  religion 
of  the  negroes  needs  improvement.  Many  re- 
proaches are  justly  laid  at  our  door,  and  we  should 
not  deny  or  indignantly  resent  them,  but  enlist  all 
our  consecrated  powers  to  rectify  and  remove 
them. 


190  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

And  the  first  of  these  stigmas  which  attaches  to 
our  various  colored  churches  is  the  impurity  of 
some  of  our  ministers.  I  say  our  ministers  be- 
cause I  am  better  acquainted  with  the  moral  status 
of  our  preachers  than  I  am  with  that  of  the  min- 
isters of  other  denominations.  I  do  not  believe 
that  we  are  more  lax  than  the  ministry  of  other 
churches.  I  will  say  farther  that  I  believe  that 
only  a  small  per  cent,  of  the  ministry  of  any  of 
our  evangelical  churches  are  impure. 

The  church  of  God  must  find  her  exponents  in 
the  representative  men  who  stand  up  before  the 
world  as  the  guardians  of  her  doctrines  and  the 
exemplars  of  her  teachings.  If  the  church  suffers 
through  the  lapses  and  inconsistencies  of  her  pri- 
vate membership,  how  much  more  must  she  re- 
ceive reproach  through  the  derelictions  and  immor- 
alities of  her  ministry  ?  "Like  priest  like  people," 
is  as  true  to-day  as  it  was  in  the  time  of  the 
prophet.  The  anathemas  of  the  Saviour  were 
hurled  at  the  wicked  priests  whose  vices  were  a 
standing  menace  to  the  purity  of  the  Jewish 
Church,  and  who  stood  in  the  way  of  the  conver- 
sion and  salvation  of  the  common  people. 

It  is  as  true  to-day  as  it  was  then  that  an  im- 
pure ministry  is  the  greatest  obstacle  to  the  growth 
and  the  power  of  the  church.  Let  men  venerate 
the  character  and  life  of  the  watchmen  who  stand 
upon  the  walls  of  Zion?  and  they  will  respect  and 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  NEGRO.  191 

venerate  the  church,  and  bow  to  the  authority 
with  which  she  is  vested.  Let  them  behold  an 
unworthy  ministry — inconsistent  in  life  and  prac- 
tice— and  they  will  withhold  their  respect  for  the 
church  and  their  allegiance  to  her  institutions. 

I  maintain  that  the  utmost  caution  should  be 
observed  in  the  selection  and  ordination  of  men 
to  discharge  these  sacred  functions.  The  doors  of 
the  ministry  should  be  barred  against  men  of 
doubtful  record  and  shady  antecedents.  They  in- 
jure both  them  and  the  church  when  they  are  al- 
lowed a  place  among  the  worthy  and  deserving 
ministers  of  the  church.  I  need  not  appeal  to  the 
worthy  and  consecrated  ministers  of  all  our  col- 
ored churches,  of  which,  thank  God,  there  are 
many  to  endorse  these  views.  All  true  ministers 
of  the  gospel  are  interested  profoundly  in  a  clean 
ministry.  They  find  themselves  hampered  and 
discounted  in  their  own  work  by  the  bad  odor  of 
other  ministers.  Let  them  see  to  it  that  "  wolves 
in  sheep's  clothing"  are  kept  out  of  the  fold. 

Again,  we  need  to  remove  the  reproach  which 
is  often  brought  against  us  of  a  lack  of  deep  pity. 
There  can  be  no  question  of  the  soundness  of  the 
negro's  faith.  It  is  only  in  the  matter  of  his  prac- 
tice, his  conformity  to  his  creed,  that  criticism  can 
find  any  just  basis  when  applied  to  his  religious 
life.  In  any  judgment  of  the  negro  in  this  regard, 
it  should  be  remembered  for  sweet  charity's  sake, 


192  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

that  only  forty-three  per  cent,  of  them  can  read 
and  write,  and  that  the  class  who  constitute  this 
forty-three  per  cent,  belong  to  those  who  have 
been  born  since  the  war.  It  could  not  be  ex- 
pected of  a  race  which,  until  recently,  could  show 
but  a  small  percentage  of  intelligence,  that  they 
should  manifest  a  high  degree  of  moral  and  re- 
ligious excellence.  I  confess  that  it  has  been  mar- 
velous to  me  that  my  people  under  such  limita- 
tions and  disadvantages  should  have  shown  such  a 
response  to  the  demands  of  a  high  and  worthy 
Christian  life.  And  in  this  respect  I  believe,  from 
a  wide  observation  on  this  line,  that  there  is  a 
steady  progress — a  constant  improvement.  Yet 
there  is  much  to  lament  in  the  looseness  of  our 
morals  as  professing  Christians.  "  Faith  is  dead 
without  works,"  and  until  we  show  forth  the 
beauty  of  religion  in  our  lives,  our  profession  will 
be  vain.  Would  to  God  that  we  could  boast 
jDurity  in  all  our  women,  integrity  and  honesty  in 
all  our  men,  a  high  type  of  genuine,  scriptural 
piety  in  all  our  churches.  Then  indeed  would  our 
Zion  be  beautiful  to  behold,  "  fair  as  the  moon  and 
terrible  as  an  army  with  banners."  This  with  us, 
as  with  all  churches  of  every  race,  should  be  the 
ideal  to  which  we  should  constantly  look  and 
work.  With  more  enlightenment  and  better 
knowledge  of  the  Bible,  I  believe  that  the  t}-pe  of 
religion  among  my  people  will  be  constantly  made 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  NEGRO.  193 

better,  and  as  time  goes  on  we  will  lift  from  our 
Zion  the  shadow  of  reproach,  and  in  the  personal 
and  individual  character  of  our  membership  pre- 
sent to  the  world  the  best  ideals  of  Christian 
living. 

Finally,  we  need  more  unanimity  of  spirit  in 
our  religious  life.  There  is  too  much  of  disunion 
and  disharmony  among  us.  In  many  instances  it 
is  the  outgrowth  of  a  spirit  of  ambition,  a  desire 
to  be  "chief"  instead  of  to  be  the  " servant  01 
all."  Most  of  the  troubles  we  have  had  in  our 
churches  has  been  the  result  of  this  spirit.  Fac- 
tional disturbances  have  often  marred  the  peace  of 
Zion,  and  our  strength  been  wasted  by  these  un- 
seemly divisions.  The  combative  spirit  in  the 
negro  shows  itself  perhaps  more  prominently  in 
these  church  disputes  than  anywhere  else.     These 

things  ought  not  so  to  be. 
13 


CHAPTER   XXII. 

RIGHT  TREATMENT  URGED. 

IN  what  I  shall  write  on  the  subject  of  the  rela- 
tion of  the  two  races,  I  shall  occupy  the  stand- 
point of  the  colored  man.  Of  course  it  is  to  be 
expected  that  a  negro  will  view  this  question  dif- 
ferently from  the  white  man.  His  condition  and 
circumstances,  his  pecular  racial  differentiation 
from  the  Caucasian,  his  past  history  as  a  slave, 
give  to  the  whole  question  of  his  relation  to  the 
white  man  in  this  country  a  deep  and  absorbing 
interest.  Many  have  discussed  this  question,  vari- 
ous and  divergent  views  have  been  presented,  and 
yet  the  problem  has  not  been  fully  solved.  Noth- 
ing I  shall  say  will  be  inspired  by  a  feelingof  unkind- 
ness  or  ill  will,  and  with  no  purpose  to  create  strife 
or  division.  For  my  white  brother  I  have  nothing 
but  love  and  good  will.  Neither  will  I  attempt  to 
magnify  unduly  the  virtues  and  strong  qualities  of 
my  own  people.  I  wish  to  be  as  fair,  impartial  and 
just  as  it  is  possible  for  one  to  be. 

And  first  I  can  say  that  there  is  not,  so  far  as  I 

know,  anything  like  prejudice  or  hatred  toward 

the  white  man  on  the  part  of  the  negro,  because 

he  is  white.     He  does  not  cherish  mere  race  ani- 

194 


RIGHT  TREATMENT  URGED.  195 

mosity.  There  can  be  no  doubt  but  that  the  whites 
do  cherish  this  race  prejudice.  They  regard  the 
negro  with  a  feeling  of  inferiority,  and  look  with 
something  of  contempt  upon  him  as  a  race.  The 
negro  has  nothing  of  this  feeling.  He  looks  with 
admiration  upon  the  wonderful  civilization  the 
white  man  has  wrought  and  strives  constantly  to 
imitate  and  to  emulate  him. 

The  negro  no  longer  cherishes  unkind  feelings 
toward  the  Southern  whites  on  account  of  the  in- 
stitution of  slavery.  The  responsibility  for  the 
introduction  of  slavery  in  this  country  must  be 
put  where  it  belongs,  upon  those  who  have  long 
since  passed  away.  Most  of  the  old  slave-holders, 
too,  have  died,  and  a  new  generation  of  whites 
have  come  to  the  fore.  For  the  wrongs  the  negro 
has  suffered  there  must  ever  be  sorrow  and  regret. 
It  is  indeed  a  dark  and  unsightly  page  on  the 
book  of  the  world's  history.  But  it  would  be  un- 
fair to  charge  slavery  or  its  wrongs  to  the  present 
generation  of  Southern  whites.  And  I  do  not  be- 
lieve that  the  negro,  as  a  race,  has  any  feeling  of 
resentment  on  account  of  these  things  toward  their 
white  neighbors.  They  have  forgiven  the  wrongs 
of  the  past,  and  are  striving  to  forget  them  in 
their  march  to  better  things. 

It  is  not  of  the  past  that  the  negro  complains ; 
it  is  of  the  present.  Kind,  just,  cordial,  brotherly 
treatment  now,  would  wipe  out  all  bitter  remem- 


196  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

brances  and  bring  the  negro  to  love  and  honor  the 
white  man  more  and  more.  What  the  negro  de- 
sires is  that  the  white  man  should  meet  him  on 
the  broad  platform  of  a  common  brotherhood  and 
give  him  a  fair  chance  in  the  race  of  life. 

The  foreigner,  born  in  distant  lands,  an  alien, 
and  often  an  enemy  to  American  institutions,  is 
welcomed  to  American  shores.  He  is  given  instant 
recognition  and  sometimes  distinguished  considera- 
tion. He  is  admitted  to  the  competitions  of 
American  life  and  given  free  entrance  into  all  ave- 
nues and  departments  of  industrial  life.  Not  so 
is  the  poor  negro  treated.  Ostracism  is  for  the 
most  part  his  lot,  his  contact  is  shunned,  except  in 
the  capacity  of  a  menial,  as  if  his  presence  were 
pollution.  On  the  cars,  in  places  of  amusement, 
at  public  gatherings  of  all  sorts,  his  contact  is 
deemed  disreputable,  and  his  presence  an  affront. 

Personally  I  make  no  complaint.  Holding  a 
high  office  in  my  church,  I  am  given  kind  and  dis- 
tinguished consideration  where  this  fact  is  known, 
and  I  fully  appreciate  the  courteous  and  polite  at- 
tentions I  receive.  But  I  am  speaking  for  my 
people,  and  I  can  but  see  the  disposition  of  the 
white  people  to  hold  off  from  their  colored  neigh- 
bor as  if  he  did  not  belong  to  the  same  human 
family. 

Be  it  understood  that  I  am  not  pleading  for 
social  equality.     No  man  understands  better  than 


RIGHT  TREATMENT  URGED.  197 

I  do  that  the  social  life  of  a  people  cannot  be  reg- 
ulated and  controlled  by  legislation.  This  must 
be  determined  by  the  laws  of  affinity,  the  prin- 
ciples of  individual  preference  and  choice  over 
which  government  has  no  power  and  which  legis- 
lative enactments  cannot  create  nor  destroy.  I 
would  be  as  far  from  entering  a  home  or  from 
thrusting  myself  into  merely  social  relations  when 
my  presence  was  not  wanted  as  any  man  living. 
It  is  unnatural  for  any  man  or  set  of  men  to  wish 
to  identify  themselves  with  the  purely  social  rela- 
tions of  others  when  their  presence  is  regarded 
with  disfavor.  It  is  not,  then,  because  his  brother 
in  white  refuses  to  recognize  his  social  equality 
in  these  particulars  that  the  negro  complains. 

To  be  candid,  it  is  this  that  he  objects  to ;  he 
does  not  think  he  is  treated  with  fairness  when  he 
is  looked  down  upon  as  inferior  on  account  of  his 
color,  if  he  is  deserving  of  regard  and  consideration 
in  other  respects  ;  that  he  should  always  be  deemed 
as  one  of  God's  creatures  to  be  tolerated,  but  not 
recognized  as  a  brother  man;  to  be  permitted  a  seat 
in  a  railway  car  as  a  nurse,  but  not  as  a  citizen;  to 
be  allowed  to  sweep  the  floor  of  a  hall  of  public 
amusement,  but  not  as  a  listener  to  be  entertained. 
This  distinction  between  the  colored  servant, 
nurse  and  the  colored  floor-sweeper,  and  the  col- 
ored citizen,  seems  to  be  putting  a  premium  on 
merely  menial  service,  and  disparaging  any  hon- 


198  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

orable  ambition  a  colored  man  may  have  to  rise 
above  the  sphere  of  a  nurse  or  a  body-servant.  In 
other  words,  the  legislation  of  some  Southern 
States,  and  the  practice  of  many  Southern  whites, 
is  directed  against  the  commendable  aspirations  of 
the  colored  race.  He  is  really  forbidden  to  aspire 
to  be  a  self-respecting  citizen.  "  You  cannot  enter 
here."  "Seat  thou  thyself  there."  "You  are  a 
negro,  therefore  be  forever  a  menial,  and  sit  thou 
forever  in  the  back  seat."  This  is  the  interpreta- 
tion of  the  conduct  of  his  white  brother  toward 
him  in  the  South  and  in  some  sections  of  the 
North. 

In  reply,  our  white  brother  says  :  "  Yes,  this  is 
true,  but  it  is  the  penalty  the  negro  must  pay  for 
his  color."  This,  then,  is  the  chasm  that  divides 
the  races.  There  will  be  no  dispute  as  to  this. 
The  white  man  admits  it.  The  colored  man  feels 
the  sting  of  it.  Could  some  ingenious  pharmacist 
prepare  a  compound  that  would  change  the  color 
of  the  negro's  skin  to  the  color  of  the  Caucasian, 
the  race  problem  would  be  solved,  and  the  last 
barrier  removed  that  divides  the  races.  Alas,  for 
the  colored  man,  no  such  a  compound  can  be 
found,  short  of  infusion,  through  the  process  of 
amalgamation. 

But  is  this  difference  in  color  sufficient  to  create 
a  line  of  separation  over  which  the  negro  is  never 
to  pass?     Did   God,  who  of  one   blood  made  all 


RIGHT  TREA  TMENT  URGED.  199 

men,  intend  the  color  to  keep  in  eternal  antago- 
nism the  two  races,  which  are  equally  the  offspring 
of  his  own  creative  power  and  love  ? 

I  am  free  to  admit  that  the  negro  has  helped  to 
create  a  sentiment  against  his  own  color.  He  has 
accepted  the  stigma  which  the  white  man  has  put 
upon  his  dark  skin  and  acquiesced  in  the  estimate 
which  he  has  been  pleased  to  put  upon  African 
blood.  This  he  has  done  without  such  protest  as 
he  should  have  made  against  the  injustice  of  that 
stigma.  The  Indian  is  proud  that  he  is  a  red 
man  ;  the  Chinaman  is  proud  that  he  is  a  yellow 
man ;  the  Anglo-Saxon  is  proud  that  he  is  a  white 
man.  Why  should  not  the  negro  be  proud  that 
he  is  a  black  man?  Is  there  any  element  of 
inferiority  in  the  dark  color,  which  is  his  ? 

The  reason  why  the  negro  does  not  take  pride 
in  his  color  is  because  it  has  been  made  the  sign 
of  his  degradation,  the  symbol  and  the  evidence 
of  his  inferiority  by  the  white  man.  His  treat- 
ment, by  reason  of  his  color,  has  taught  him  to 
dislike  his  color,  and  to  attribute  all  his  injuries 
and  slights  to  that  cause.  If  he  is  ostracised,  it 
is  because  he  has  a  dark  skin ;  if  he  is  elbowed 
out  of  the  better  and  more  lucrative  places  of 
business,  if  he  is  remanded  to  the  rear  in  all  com- 
petitive struggles  in  the  work  and  walk  of  life,  it  is 
because  the  Almighty  did  not  see  fit  to  give  his  skin 
the  same  color  as  that  of  his  Anglo-Saxon  brother. 


200  THE  NEGRO  AND  THT  WHITE  MAN. 

Hence,  it  is  generally  the  case,  the  negro  is 
glad  of  the  white  infusion  of  blood  he  has  received 
through  miscegenation.  He  finds  that  the  lighter 
his  skin  is,  the  more  he  is  admired  by  his  own 
race  and  the  more  he  is  preferred  by  the  white 
race.  In  many  instances  the  mixture  of  white 
with  negro  blood  is  a  matter  of  pride  and  boasting 
with  those  so  amalgamated,  and  has  created  a 
social  class  called  mulattoes.  These  separate 
themselves  from  the  negroes  of  darker  skins,  and 
affect  a  feeling  of  superiority.  The  negro  has 
thus  been  educated  to  look  upon  his  color  as  a 
mark  of  degradation.  The  white  man  has  taught 
him  so  to  regard  it,  and  he  has  too  willingly  fallen 
in  with  his  teaching.  This  estimate  of  color  the 
negro  should  be  taught  is  purely  the  result  of  that 
prejudice  which  originated  in  and  was  perpetuated 
by  slavery.  He  should  be  taught  that  his  color 
is  his  inheritance  from  God,  and  that  no  degrada- 
tion attaches  to  it.  He  should  be  taught  that 
intelligence,  honesty,  uprightness  constitute  the 
nobility  of  individuals  and  races,  and  these  will 
make  him  worthy  of  respect  and  honor,  no  matter 
what  his  color  may  be. 

The  white  man  bases  his  aversion  to  association 
with  the  negro  upon  the  ground  that  he  is  not  a 
cognate  race.  But  the  only  evidence  of  this  fact 
is  the  color  of  his  skin  at  last.  He  holds  that  the 
obliteration  of  the  "color  line"  will  be  the  first 


RIGHT  TREATMENT  URGED.  201 

step  to  complete  amalgamation.  Practically,  how- 
ever, the  color  line  is  ignored,  and  miscegenation 
goes  on  hourly.  One  million  and  upwards  of  mu- 
lattoes  tell  the  story,  besides  as  many  more  with 
a  slight  admixture  of  Caucasian  blood.  The  law 
forbids  intermarriage  and  curtails  the  social  and 
civil  rights  of  the  negroes  in  the  South,  but  it  is 
powerless  to  reach  the  great  tide  of  miscegenation 
which  threatens  at  length  to  wipe  out  the  color 
line  despite  the  prejudices  and  the  legislation 
against  it.  If  the  American  negro  be  not  a  cog- 
nate race  in  the  next  hundred  years,  it  will  not  be 
the  fault  of  the  Southern  whites  who,  through 
the  process  of  unlawful  amalgamation,  are  so 
rapidly  infusing  in  his  veins  the  Caucasian  blood. 

Be  it  understood  that  I  am  not  contending  for 
what  is  known  as  "  social  equality,"  a  legalized 
equality  which  forces  association  of  whites  with 
whites,  or  of  whites  with  negroes.  As  I  have 
stated,  this  question  must  be  left  to  natural  laws 
which  grow  out  of  personal  and  social  affinities. 
I  am  now  contending  only  for  that  social  equality 
which  is  designated  as  civil  rights.  I  believe  with 
all  my  heart  that  a  colored  man,  if  he  pays  for  it, 
is  entitled  to  as  good  a  seat  in  a  railway  car  as  any 
other  man.  So  long  as  he  is  driven  from  decent 
places  and  decent  surroundings  as  an  object  of  de- 
testation, so  long  will  he  be  taught  to  yield  his 
own  self  respect,  and  so  long  will  the  white  race 


202  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

look  down  upon  him  as  a  menial,  a  groundling  and 
a  slave. 

Such  treatment  of  the  negro  as  will  teach  him 
to  respect  himself  will  not  bring  about  the  friction 
and  trouble  the  white  people  of  the  South  antici- 
pate. Only  the  better  class  of  colored  people, 
those  who  are  neat  in  person  and  well-to-do  in 
purse,  as  a  general  thing,  would  be  able  to  claim 
first-class  accommodations.  In  the  street  cars  of  all 
our  Southern  cities,  colored  people  ride  with 
white  people.  This  does  not  create  friction,  and 
here,  owing  to  the  cheapness  of  fare,  the  least  re- 
spectable colored  classes  are  admitted  to  seats  side 
by  side  with  white  people.  This  shows  that  the 
separation  of  the  races  in  the  railway  car,  and  at 
places  of  amusement,  and  at  public  gatherings, 
generally,  is  the  outgrowth  of  a  prejudice  which 
has  made  such  separation  a  custom,  and  that  it  is 
not  founded  in  reason  or  common  sense. 

I  would  impress  this  thought  upon  my  brothers 
in  white:  Do  not  always  be  flaunting  in  the 
negro's  face  the  "red  flag"  of  color.  Do  not  drive 
him  like  a  hunted  beast  from  all  places  of  respec- 
tability. If  he  is  a  gentleman  in  appearance  and 
intelligence,  do  not  seek  to  degrade  him  by  push- 
ing him  aside.  If  he  is  able  to  pay  his  way,  let 
him  get  the  benefit  of  his  money,  and  whenever 
he  violates  the  laws  of  propriety  and  good  breed- 
ing, call  him  down  just  as  you  would  an  ill-bred 
and  an  ill-mannered  white  man. 


CHAPTER   XXIII. 

SHALL  THE  NEGRO  EMIGRATE? 

THE  question  of  emigration  is  not  a  new  one. 
It  has  been  discussed  and  experimented  with 
since  emancipation.  Colonization  has  been  favored 
by  men  of  wise  heads  and  who  possessed  a  thor- 
ough knowledge  of  the  peculiar  circumstances  of 
the  colored  people  in  this  country.  These  have 
maintained  that  it  is  the  only  safe  and  speedy  so- 
lution of  the  negro  problem.  That  they  were 
honest  in  their  advocacy  of  colonization  none  will 
question.  Every  scheme  to  this  end,  however, 
has  not  only  failed,  but  failed  signally  and  com- 
pletely, and  there  is  not  a  single  encouragement 
furnished  by  any  past  experiment  for  any  plan  of 
colonization. 

I  have  systematically  and  conscientiously  op- 
posed emigration  whenever  I  have  had  occasion  to 
consider  the  subject.  I  have  never  seen  any  pros- 
pect for  the  betterment  of  my  race  in  any  scheme 
of  colonization  that  has  ever  been  suggested.  I 
have  always  believed  that  America  is  the  best 
place  for  the  American  negro,  and  that  here  he 
can  and  will  work  out  the  highest  destiny  possible 
for  him.     I  have  accepted  what  I  believe  to  be 

203 


204  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

the  purpose  of  Providence  in  permitting  his  loca- 
tion here  and  in  keeping  him  here  to  fulfill  the 
highest  ends  that  Providence  has  in  view  for  him. 

It  can  but  be  apparent  to  him  who  seriously 
considers  the  subject  that  it  would  be  a  foolish 
thing,  if  it  were  feasible,  for  the  negro  at  this 
period  of  his  history,  to  relinquish  the  civilization 
that  surrounds  him  and  go  out  to  the  wilds  of 
some  unpeopled  wilderness  which  has  not  been 
touched  by  the  light  of  modern  thought  and  ideas 
— to  leave  the  contact  of  the  inspiring  and  elevat- 
ing forces  which  environ  him,  and  dump  himself 
down  to  the  vast  solitudes  of  Africa  or  any  other 
country.  It  would  in  some  respects  be  like  the 
conduct  of  the  prodigal,  who  left  his  splendid 
home  to  herd  with  the  swine  and  to  feed  upon  the 
husks. 

I  have  not  opposed  the  emigration  of  individuals, 
men  of  our  race  with  means,  or  men  with  special 
gifts  for  missionary  work  among  the  untutored 
and  the  uncivilized.  Let  them  go  if  they  desire, 
or  if  they  feel  moved  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  and 
my  best  wishes  and  my  prayers  will  go  with  them. 
But  for  the  negroes  of  this  country,  as  a  race,  to 
undertake  to  emigrate  to  Africa,  or  any  other  for- 
eign country,  I  have  thought,  and  still  think, 
would  be  a  suicidal  step  fraught  with  blight  and 
ruin  to  the  interests  and  the  hopes  of  my  people. 

Such  a  scheme,  in  the  first  place,  is  thoroughly 


SHALL  THE  NEGRO  EMIGRATE?  205 

impracticable  in  any  view  of  it,  for  to  be  worth 
anything  it  must  be  accomplished  in  a  short  time. 
Slow  emigration  would  result  in  the  loss  of  all  the 
negro  has  gained,  for  the  few  would  be  absorbed 
into  the  many.  To  be  a  successful  scheme  of  emi- 
gration it  must  be  an  exodus  like  that  of  the 
Israelites,  when  the  whole  nation  went  at  once, 
and  not  a  hoof  nor  a  horn  was  left  behind.  Even 
with  all  the  multitudes  of  Israel  bound  by  a  com- 
mon suffering  and  a  common  deliverance,  it  was 
almost  impossible  to  preserve  them  from  the  idol- 
atry of  the  Caananites.  The  slow  emigration  of 
the  American  negro  to  Africa,  or  any  other  new 
foreign  country,  would  mean  his  disintegration  as 
a  race  and  his  absorption  into  foreign  and  heathen 
fetichism. 

But  the  scheme  of  immediate  colonization  as  a 
race  is  utterly  impracticable.  If  it  be  to  Africa, 
the  only  country  that  offers  any  physical  advan- 
tages for  the  planting  of  so  large  a  colony,  the 
cost  of  transporting  a  race  of  eight  millions  of 
people  would  be  an  insuperable  difficulty.  Who 
would  furnish  the  money,  who  would  fit  out  the 
ships,  who  would  support  the  race  until  it  became 
self-supporting,  and  no  man  can  compute  how 
long  this  would  be.  Lands  would  have  to  be 
cleared,  houses  built,  and  all  the  necessary  appur- 
tenances and  improvements  gotten  together  for  the 
pursuit  of   agriculture,  the    only  occupation  the 


206  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN 

negro  as  a  race  is  acquainted  with.  Then  there  is 
the  danger  of  a  new  climate,  which  at  first  would 
bring  on  new  and  numerous  diseases.  The  negro 
has  already  passed  through  the  ordeal  of  violent 
climatic  changes  when  he  was  brought  to  America, 
and  fifty  per  cent,  of  them  died  in  their  removal 
from  Africa  to  Jamaica  and  the  West  India 
Islands.  He  would  have  to  repeat  the  same  ex- 
perience in  his  return  to  Africa.  None  but  an 
enthusiast  and  a  dreamer  would  advocate  sudden 
and  wholesale  emigration. 

Emigration  is  not  only  impracticable,  but  unde- 
sirable. It  is  better  to  remain  where  we  are,  even 
if  it  were  practicable  to  go  away.  Here  we  have 
schools  in  operation  of  every  grade,  from  the  pub- 
lic school  to  the  university.  Millions  have  been 
invested  in  plants  for  our  education.  Colleges, 
normal  institutes,  seminaries,  high  schools,  are 
here  to  fit  our  young  men  and  women  for  intelli- 
gent, cultured  citizenship.  Our  people  too  are 
rapidly  becoming  land-owners;  they  are  investing 
in  town  and  city  property,  as  we  have  shown  else- 
where, and  multitudes  of  them  own  good,  com- 
fortable homes.  The  colored  man  is  practically 
in  possession  of  the  best  lands  in  the  South  as  ten- 
ants. To  leave  all  these  advantages  and  go  forth 
into  an  unknown  country  under  new  conditions, 
it  seems  to  me  would  be  madness. 

Contact   with    Anglo-Saxon    civilization   is    no 


SHALL  THE  NEGRO  EMIGRATE?  207 

small  advantage  the  negro  would  have  to  sur- 
render in  any  scheme  of  colonization.  In  his 
present  formative  state  he  needs  this  environment. 
He  touches  now  every  day  the  greatest  race  that 
has  yet  appeared  on  the  earth,  the  race  whose 
genius  and  valor  have  conquered  upon  every  field, 
and  left  every  other  nation  and  people  far  to  the 
rear  in  their  splendid  march  to  conquest  and 
power.  The  negro  has  the  imitative  faculty  to  a 
high  degree,  and  quickly  and  readily  absorbs  what 
he  sees  and  hears.  Here  he  is  beginning  to  take 
on  a  good  degree  of  civilization.  He  is  becoming 
an  architect  and  a  builder,  a  merchant,  a  teacher, 
a  minister,  and  a  scientific  agriculturist.  He  is 
entering  slowly  the  learned  professions  as  oppor- 
tunity will  allow,  and  becoming  a  lawyer,  a  physi- 
cian, an  engineer,  and  is  filling  other  places  requir- 
ing skill,  and  training,  and  culture.  It  seems  to 
me  that  at  present  he  is  in  the  best  possible  en- 
vironment for  him,  and  to  leave  it  upon  a  venture 
would  be  the  sum  of  folly,  the  worst  possible  step 
he  could  take. 

Again,  the  negro  has  become  attached  to  the 
land  of  his  adoption.  Here  he  has  suffered,  it  is 
true,  but  here,  too,  he  has  rejoiced.  Here  he  was 
born,  here  his  ancestors  for  generations  were  born. 
Here  he  first  saw  the  sun  of  liberty  rise,  and  here 
he  heard  first  the  bugle  notes  of  freedom  which 
fell  like  music  on  his  soul.     It  is  his  labor  that 


203  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

has  largely  created  the  wealth  of  the  South,  that 
has  cut  down  the  native  forests,  dug  out  of  her  soil 
untold  wealth,  and  enriched  her  fair  domain. 
Here  sleep  the  ashes  of  his  loved  ones,  and  sacred 
memories  gather  about  all  the  hills  and  valleys  of 
this  his  adopted  yet  native  home.  The  negro 
loves  America.  The  Stars  and  the  Stripes  is  the 
symbol  to  him  of  his  liberty,  and  next  to  God  it 
is  the  holiest  object  to  his  heart.  Here  he  wishes 
to  live,  to  identify  himself  with  American  history 
and  glory,  and  share  in  the  brightening  destiny  of 
American  institutions.  He  does  not  wish  to  be 
torn  from  these  associations  and  environments. 
Deep  down  in  his  heart  is  an  abiding  patriotism. 
It  is  this  that  makes  America  the  most  revered  of 
all  countries.  He  has  learned  to  call  it  "my 
country,"  and  to  defend  it  against  every  foe,  he 
would  gladly  give  his  life.  A  few  now  and  then 
have  gone  back  to  Africa,  but  the  great  masses 
have  been  deaf  to  all  emigration  appeals,  because 
they  loved  the  South  and  America  too  well  to 
leave.  So  long  as  this  love  abides  in  his  heart,  so 
long  will  he  keep  his  present  domicile. 

It  is  urged  by  those  who  have  persistently  ad- 
vocated emigration  that  the  negro  ought  to  go, 
because  his  presence  is  not  desired  here  by  his 
white  neighbor  and  brother.  So  far  from  this 
being  so,  the  very  opposite  seems  the  case.  Emi- 
gration has  had,  perhaps,  its  greatest  foe  in  the 


SHALL  THE  NEGRO  EMIGRATE?  209 

white   man.      He    opposed   it   bitterly    from    the 
beginning.     The  white  people  of  the  South  recog- 
nize the  fact  that  the  negro  makes  the  best  laborer 
in  the  world,  and  that,  as  a  citizen,  he  is  prefer- 
able in   every  way  to  the   foreigner,  no    matter 
from  what  country  he  may  come.     It  is  a  mistake 
to  say  that  any  considerable  number  of  the  citi- 
zens of  the  South  desire  now,  or  ever  have  desired, 
the  emigration  of  the   negro.     On  the   contrary, 
they  have  thrown  every  obstacle  in  the  way  to 
prevent  it.     In  many  States  the  legislatures  have 
imposed  heavy  fines  upon  emigration  agents,  whose 
purpose  was  simply  to  remove  them  from  State  to 
State.     The   imputation,  then,  that  the  negro  is 
remaining  in  the  South  against  the  wishes  of  the 
South,  is  gratuitous  and   grossly  contrary  to  the 
truth.     If  there  is  any  charge  to  make,  it  is  that 
the  white  people  have  too  bitterly  opposed  even 
the  smallest  movement  looking  to  emigration  by 
the  negro.     I  will  admit  that  a  few  individuals, 
including    Senator    Morgan,    of    Alabama,    have 
advocated  emigration,  but  the  great  masses  of  the 
Southern   people   have   persistently   and  bitterly 
fought  it  at  every  step. 

The  friends  of  emigration,  among  the  leading 
colored  people  of  America,  have  based  their  appeal 
further  upon  the  unfair  and  unjust  treatment  the 
negro  receives  at  the  hands  of  the  Southern 
whites.  This  is  the  only  argument  that  has  been 
14 


210  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

advanced  for  emigration,  as  it  appears  to  me,  that 
has  any  real  force  in  it.  Whenever  it  shall  ap- 
pear that  it  is  the  fixed  purpose  and  policy  of  the 
whites  to  withhold  justice  from  the  negro,  to 
refuse  him  protection  before  the  law  in  all  just  de- 
mands, to  look  with  favor  upon  lawless  mobs  who, 
without  pretext  of  law,  take  him  by  force  from  his 
home  or  from  the  custody  of  the  officers  of  the  law 
and  violently  assault  him  and  sometimes  cruelly 
murder  him  for  alleged  but  unproven  crimes,  then 
it  will  be  time  for  the  negro  to  accept  whatever 
scheme  of  emigration  that  may  be  offered  to  leave 
the  home  and  country  of  his  adoption.  To  remain 
longer,  under  such  cruel  conditions,  would  not 
only  be  fatal  to  his  happiness  and  contentment, 
but  a  crime  committed  against  himself  and  his 
children,  which  no  aspiring  and  self-respecting 
people  would  consent  to. 

I  do  not  believe  that  such  a  juncture  in  the 
history  of  the  Southern  negro  has  yet  been 
reached.  I  believe  that  it  is  the  design  and  pur- 
pose of  the  legally-constituted  authorities  in  the 
South,  and  of  the  large  body  of  the  intelligent 
and  law-abiding  white  people  of  that  section,  to 
deal  fairly  with  the  negroes,  at  least  in  the  matter 
of  life,  liberty  and  property.  And  I  affirm  that 
this  class  looks  with  disfavor  and  reprehension 
upon  lawless  methods  and  procedures  in  dealing 
with  their  colored  neighbors.     Still,  with  all  this, 


SHALL  THE  NEGRO  EMIGRATE f  211 

the  colored  man  is  often  the  victim  of  injustice 
and  cruelty.  Race  prejudice  often  operates  to 
defeat  justice  before  the  courts,  and  to  rob  him  of 
the  hard-earned  rewards  of  toil.  We  hope  and 
believe  that  a  righteous  sentiment,  demanding 
and  requiring  kind  treatment,  honest  dealing  and 
strict  justice  towards  the  negro,  will  permeate  the 
entire  masses  of  Southern  whites,  and  that  the 
day  is  not  far  distant  when  lawlessness,  mob-rule 
and  cruelty  will  be  things  of  the  past. 

Emigration  for  the  negro  is  growing  less  and 
less  popular  among  the  negroes  themselves.  They 
have  been  fleeced  time  and  again  by  so-called  emi- 
gration agents,  tramps  and  frauds,  who  have  prac- 
tised upon  their  credulity  to  swindle  and  defraud 
them.  They  have  come  at  length  to  see,  those  of 
them  who  have  looked  with  some  degree  of  favor 
upon  colonization,  that  it  is  a  dream  and  a  delu- 
sion, and  with  a  practical  unanimity  the  race  has 
settled  the  question,  and  have  made  up  their 
minds  to  work  out  the  problem  of  their  destiny  in 
the  South  and  Southwest,  where  they  are  at 
present  located.  That  they  are  wise  in  this  deci- 
sion, no  man  who  looks  candidly  and  dispassion- 
ately at  the  situation  can  have  a  reasonable  doubt. 
Time  will  cure  many  of  the  ills  under  which  we 
suffer  to-day.  Growing  intelligence  and  improv- 
ing financial  conditions  will  dispose  of  many 
questions,  which  now  seem  perplexing  and  insolv- 


212  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN. 

able.  Broader  and  more  Christian  views,  on  the 
part  of  the  whites,  will  dispel  much  of  the  preju- 
dice and  injustice  which  now  exist,  and  the  negro 
will  march  on  to  his  destiny  in  the  South  with  the 
good-will  of  his  white  brother  and  with  the  smiles 
of  Almighty  God  upon  him. 


CHAPTER   XXIV. 

AN  APPEAL  TO  OUR  BROTHER  IN  WHITE. 

PROVIDENCE,  in  wisdom,  has  decreed  that 
the  lot  of  the  negro  should  be  cast  with  the 
white  people  of  America.  Condemn  as  we  may 
the  means  through  which  we  were  brought  here, 
recount  as  we  may  the  suffering  through  which,  as 
a  race,  we  passed  in  the  years  of  slavery,  yet  the 
fact  remains  that  to-day  our  condition  is  far  in  ad- 
vance of  that  of  the  negroes  who  have  never  left 
their  native  Africa.  We  are  planted  in  the  midst 
of  the  highest  civilization  mankind  has  ever  known, 
and  are  rapidly  advancing  in  knowledge,  property 
and  moral  enlightenment.  We  might,  with  all 
reason,  thank  God  even  for  slavery,  if  this  were 
the  only  means  through  which  we  could  arrive  at 
our  present  progress  and  development. 

We  should  indeed  account  ourselves  blest  if  our 
white  brethren  would  always  extend  to  us  that 
kindness,  justice  and  sympathy  which  our  services 
to  them  in  the  past  should  inspire,  and  our  de- 
pendence upon  them  as  the  more  enlightened  and 
wealthy  race  should  prompt  them  to  bestow. 

Why  should  there  be  prejudice  and  dislike  on 
the  part  of  the  white  man  to  his  colored  brother  ? 

213 


214  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN 

Is  it  because  he  was  once  a  slave,  and  a  slave  must 
forever  wear  the  marks  of  degradation  ?  Is  there 
no  effacement  for  the  stigma  of  slavery — no  erase- 
ment  for  this  blot  of  shame  ?  Will  our  white 
brother  not  remember  that  it  was  his  hand  that 
forged  the  links  of  that  chain  and  that  riveted 
them  around  the  necks  of  a  people  that  had  roved 
for  thousands  of  years  in  the  unrestrained  liberty 
of  their  boundless  forests  in  far-away  Africa  ?  As 
well  might  the  seducer  blacken  the  name  and  rep- 
utation of  the  fair  and  spotless  maiden  he  had 
cruelly  and  wantonly  seduced.  Go  far  enough 
back  and  it  is  more  than  probable  that  you  will 
find  the  taint  of  slavery  in  your  line  and  its  blot 
upon  your  escutcheon.  The  proud  Saxon  became 
the  slave  to  the  Norman,  and  yet  to-day  millions 
are  proud  to  be  called  Anglo-Saxons. 

Will  our  white  brother  refuse  us  his  cordial  fel- 
lowship because  of  our  ignorance  ?  Ignorance  is 
indeed  a  great  evil  and  hinderance.  The  enlight- 
ened and  refined  cannot  fellowship  the  ignorant 
the  benighted,  the  untutored.  If  this  be  the  line 
of  demarkation,  we  can  and  will  remove  it.  No 
people  ever  made  more  heroic  efforts  to  rise  from 
ignorance  to  enlightenment.  Forty-three  per  cent, 
of  the  negro  race  can  read  and  write,  and  with 
time  we  can  bring  our  race  up  to  a  high  degree  of 
civilization.-  We  are  determined,  by  the  help  of 
Providence,  and  the   strength  of  our  own  right 


AN  APPEAL  TO  OUR  BROTHER  IN  WHITE.    215 

arms,  to  educate  our  people  until  the  reproach  of 
ignorance  can  no  longer  be  brought  against  us. 
When  we  do,  will  our  white  brothers  accord  that 
respect  which  is  due  intelligence  and  culture  ? 

Does  our  white  brother  look  with  disdain  upon 
us  because  we  are  not  cleanly  and  neat  ?  It  is 
true  that  the  masses  of  our  race  have  not  shown  that 
regard  for  personal  cleanliness  and  nicety  of  dress, 
which  a  wealthy  and  educated  people  have  the 
means  and  the  time  to  do.  Our  people,  by  the 
exigencies  of  their  lot,  have  had  to  toil  and  toil  in 
the  menial  places,  the  places  where  drudgery  was 
demanded  and  where  contact  with  dust  and  filth 
was  necessary  to  the  accomplishment  of  their  work. 
But  even  this  can  be  remedied,  and  cleanliness  and 
neatness  can  be  made  a  part  of  the  negro's  educa- 
tion until  they  can  present,  as  thousands  of  them 
are  now  doing,  a  creditable  appearance.  Will  im- 
provement along  these  lines  help  us  to  gain  the 
esteem  and  respectful  consideration  of  our  white 
brothers  ?  If  so,  the  time  is  not  far  distant  when 
this  barrier  will  be  removed.  Education  will  help 
solve  this  difficulty  as  it  does  all  others,  and  give 
to  our  race  that  touch  of  refinement  which  insures 
physical  as  well  as  mental  soundness — sano  mens 
in  sano  corpora. 

But  is  our  moral  condition  the  true  reason  of  our 
ostracism?  Are  we  remanded  to  the  back  seats 
and  ever  held  in  social  dishonor  because  we  are 


216  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN 

morally  unclean?  Would  that  we  could  reply  by 
a  denial  of  the  allegation,  and  rightly  claim  that 
purity  which  should  be  at  the  foundation  of  all 
respectable  social  life.  But  here  we  ask  the  char- 
itable judgment  of  our  white  brethren,  and  point 
them  to  the  heroic  eiforts  we  have  made  and  are 
making  for  the  moral  elevation  of  our  race.  Even 
a  superficial  glance  at  the  social  side  of  the  negro's 
life  will  convince  the  unprejudiced  that  progress  is 
being  made  among  the  better  classes  of  our  people 
toward  virtuous  living.  Chastity  is  being  urged 
everywhere  in  the  school-house,  and  the  church, 
and  the  home,  for  our  women,  and  honesty  and 
integrity  for  our  men.  We  can  and  will  lift  the 
shadow  of  immorality  from  the  great  masses  of  our 
race,  and  demonstrate  to  the  whole  world  what  re- 
ligion and  education  can  do  for  a  people.  We  are 
doing  it.  Among  the  thoroughly  cultured  and 
rightly  trained  of  our  women,  virtue  is  as  sacred 
as  life,  and  among  our  young  men  of  similar  ad- 
vantages, honor  and  integrity  are  prized  as  highly 
as  among  any  people  on  the  globe. 

Is  our  poverty  the  barrier  that  divides  us  from 
a  closer  fellowship  with  our  white  brethren? 
Would  wealth  cure  all  the  evils  of  our  condition, 
and  give  us  the  cordial  recognition  we  ask  from 
them?  If  so,  we  can  remove  even  this  barrier. 
Our  labor  has  already  created  much  of  the  wealth 
of  the   South,  and  it   only  needs  intelligence  to 


AN  APPEAL  TO  OUR  BROTHER  IN  WHITE.    217 

turn  it  into  our  own  coffers  and  make  it  the  pos- 
session of  our  own  people.  Among  the  whites 
money  seems  to  be  the  sesame  that  opens  the  doors 
to  social  recognition,  and  converts  the  veriest 
shoddy  into  a  man  of  influence  and  rank.  Bar- 
ney Barnato,  who  began  life  with  a  trained 
donkey,  a  London  Jew,  became  at  length  the 
South  African  Diamond  King,  and  then  all  Lon- 
don paid  homage  to  this  despised  son  of  a  hated 
race.  Would  money  thus  convert  our  despised 
people  into  honorable  citizens,  give  them  kindly 
recognition  at  the  hands  of  their  white  neighbors, 
and  take  from  them  the  stigma  which  has  so  long 
marked  them  with  dishonor  and  shame?  If  so, 
we  can  hope  to  secure  even  this  coveted  prize,  and 
claim  like  Barney  Barnato  the  respect  of  mankind. 
But  if  it  is  none  of  these  things  that  doom  us 
to  ostracism  and  degradation,  as  a  people,  I  ask 
finally  is  it  our  color?  Alas,  if  it  be  this,  we  can 
do  nothing  to  remove  the  line  of  separation,  un- 
less it  be  to  wait  the  slow  process  of  amalgama- 
tion which,  despite  our  efforts,  the  white  people  of 
this  country  seem  bound  to  consummate.  If  we 
knew  of  any  chemical  preparation  by  which  we 
could  change  the  color  of  our  skins  and  straighten 
the  kinks  in  our  hair,  we  might  hope  to  bring 
about  the  desired  consummation  at  once,  but 
alas,  there  is  no  catholicon  for  this  ill,  no  mystic 
concoction  in  all  the  pharmacies  of  earth  to  work 


218  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  WHITE  MAN 

this  miracle  of  color.  We  must  fold  our  hands  in 
despair  and  submit  to  our  fate  with  heavy  hearts. 

To  be  serious,  however,  I  would  plead  with  our 
white  brothers  not  to  despise  us  on  account  of  our 
color.  It  is  the  inheritance  we  received  from 
God,  and  it  should  be  no  mark  of  shame  or  dis- 
honor. "  Can  the  leopard  change  his  spots  or  the 
Ethiopian  his  skin?"  No  disgrace  can  be  attached 
to  physical  characteristics  which  are  the  result  of 
heredity,  and  cannot  be  removed  by  any  volition 
or  effort.  How  cruel  it  is  to  visit  upon  the  colored 
man  contempt  and  dishonor  because  of  the  hue  of 
his  skin,  or  the  curling  peculiarity  of  his  hair. 
Let  him  stand  or  fall  upon  his  merit.  Let  him  be 
respected  if  he  is  worthy.  Let  him  be  despised  if 
he  is  unworthy. 

We  appeal  to  our  white  brothers  to  accord  us 
simple  justice.  If  we  deserve  good  treatment  give 
it  to  us,  and  do  not  consider  the  question  of  color 
any  more  than  you  would  refuse  kindness  to  a 
man  because  he  is  blind. 

All  we  ask  is  a  fair  show  in  the  struggle  of  life. 
We  have  nothing  but  the  sentiment  of  kindness 
for  our  white  brethren.  Take  us  into  your  confi- 
dence, trust  us  with  responsibility,  and  above  all, 
show  us  cordial  kindness.  Thus  will  you  link  our 
people  to  you  by  the  chains  of  love  which  nothing 
can  break,  and  we  will  march  hand  in  hand  up 
the  steep  pathway  of  progress. 


